


Late Nights

by serpentqueenz



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Inspired by 3x11, Shameless Smut, Smut, and there's oral too so if you don't like that, angst because I don't know how to write anything remotely happy, as in this really has no plot but they be sexing, or fingers in your mouth then this isn't for you bby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2019-10-20 21:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17630174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentqueenz/pseuds/serpentqueenz
Summary: She turns around and grabs his wrist when he reaches out for her, trapping his pulse under her fingers but he smiles with an easy high smile and relief. He bites his lip as she spins on high heels, fluttering eyelashes while he remembers why he does this and why he does it for her. But she pulls him close by his belt around his hips and pulls his suspenders to bring him down to her. “You're driving me crazy already, baby,” he whispers in her ear. “Are you trying to kill me?” he smooths hands up the back of her thighs but she reaches behind herself and grabs his wrists again.“You don’t think I’ll let you in that easy, do you Jughead?” she frowns against him, tiptoeing to taste his lips.“This is why I fucking hate Riverdale,” he murmurs against her.He lets her walk away because she wasn’t his girl and Riverdale wouldn’t let her be.*- Probably an ongoing fic with drabbles posted here, possibly non related at times! Just Jeronica love-*





	1. Late Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by our latest Noir episode, Chapter Forty Six: The Red Dahlia, not that there's anything remotely Noir about this, it's just smut with a touch of forbidden lust. Not fancy. It is what it is. For Aubrey, as always.

_**Late Nights** _

* * *

 

“Working late I see?”

Veronica storms through the office, leaving an echo sitting in the air of her expensive heels clipping on cheap linoleum flooring. Jughead drags his eyes from the old typewriter he uses for aesthetics sake and places them on Veronica legs, moving upwards. Veronica’s smile is curt but the sound of the rain against the window makes Jughead’s concentration falter when he’s trying to summons every part of it. Grounding himself in the presence of Veronica Lodge is all that matters in the moment but she’s too observant and too invested in the truths that she’s always been able to skim out under Jughead’s well placed lies.

“I assume you’re here to find out who done it,” Jughead answers, spinning in his chair and faking disinterest, pulse pumping with Veronica here.

“After my father woke up, it was the first thing he asked me. I told him it was Tall Boy.”

“Did he believe you?” he asks, trying to hide concern.

“I think so,” she paused for a moment, dragging her eyes away from me to her bag, “if it’s good enough for my father, it’s good enough for me. The second half of your payment…”

Jughead stands to reach out for the payment that he doesn’t want. He watches Veronica’s hands, trying not to meet her eyes too much but her fingers linger with his a little longer than they should. He can feel the back of his jaw tighten as her smell becomes stronger the closer he gets. He wonders if she’s silk or lace today, the feel of her skin under his nails is so etched in his mind, he can almost feel the expanding of her chest against his when he gets in deep….

She turns away to leave.

Jughead pulls himself out of his mind when he asks; “You don’t want to know who really did it?”

“Forget it, Jughead. It’s Riverdale.”

Veronica walks out and Jughead follows quickly behind her, not wanting her to get away. “Veronica!” he calls.

She turns around and grabs his wrist when he reaches out for her, trapping his pulse under her fingers but he smiles with an easy high smile and relief. He bites his lip as she spins on high heels, fluttering eyelashes while he remembers why he does this and why he does it for _her_. But she pulls him close by his belt around his hips and pulls his suspenders to bring him down to her. “You're driving me crazy already, baby,” he whispers in her ear. “Are you trying to kill me?” he smooths hands up the back of her thighs but she reaches behind herself and grabs his wrists again.

“You don’t think I’ll let you in that easy, do you Jughead?” she frowns against him, tiptoeing to taste his lips.

“This is why I fucking hate Riverdale,” he murmurs against her.

He lets her walk away because she wasn’t his girl and Riverdale wouldn’t let her be.

* * *

La Bonne Nuit needed security and that was what Jughead was.

Veronica met him at the door. Four in the morning was noisier for them than others and that was the way Jughead enjoyed it. “I don’t need you tonight, Jughead,” she sang with sleep in her voice and malice singing through it.

“You don’t know how much I need this,” he says, holding back the urgency in his tone, drinking it down. He steps from desperate foot to foot with his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his needy cigarettes next to his itching hands. Hands that were begging to be on her. “Come on, baby, it’s been a hard couple of days... Your Mom... your Dad..." he sighs, "I don't know, but it's getting to me."

She tries to slam the door in Jughead’s face but she doesn’t try hard enough, telling Jughead that maybe she needs him just as much as he needs her. “I gave you your payment.”

Jughead groans with his hands in his hair before shutting the door to La Bonne Nuit, flicking the locks before he turns to chase her. “You know I’m not here for that…” She stares at him and he sits on words, unsure of what to say but he feels venom in his glands and a rattling in his back because even though she doesn't say it in so many words, Jughead knows that Veronica feels the same darkness in her soul that’s in his fucking soul. He swallows loudly and clears his throat, he wonders briefly if he can change, and then suddenly, he wonders nothing at all. “You're mad at me.”

She sits with her legs crossed on her makeshift bed. “You’re working side by side with Betty.”

“Last I knew you had Archie in one hand and Reggie in the other," he shrugs back.

She rolls her eyes and sighs loudly before Jughead falls to his knees, crawling towards her. “I still need you, you know that right?” Veronica bites her lip and it makes Jughead smile, running his tongue over his teeth. He gets to Veronica’s legs and kisses both insides of her knees. “I can tell you know I need you.”

He moves his hands up her legs and to the insides of her thighs, touching her softly, feeling her after five long days without her. Veronica tries to shut her legs, faking annoyance and turning away but she lifts her hips higher with Jughead’s hand locked between her. She looks Jughead in the eye when she says; “I’m still annoyed, Jones.” Her eyes cold in the way she looks at him but anything was good enough for Jughead if it means she’s with him. 

"I know," he agrees, standing up to get up onto the makeshift bed before pushing her to lay down.

Jughead works quickly as he pulls down the silk between her thighs, he feels everything when he runs his hand up and down between her, slowing his heart, letting her soak in to him. _I’m finally home_ , he thinks to himself, closing his eyes. Five days is too long when she’s not with him and her nails aren’t digging into his back.

There was something so intoxicating about Veronica to Jughead. Her entire body was luring and called out to Jughead, pulling every single part of his body and bloodstream towards her. Her hips were fleshy for him to hold, the way she rolled on his body and arched her back in just a way that his hands sat perfectly on her drove him wild. “I wish we were like this all the time, V.”

She smiles back but it’s guarded and cold. _The truth fucking hurts,_ he thinks to himself. _When it’s her and I, when we’re touching. When we’re not fucked up and hiding._

“We’ll get there one day,” she lies. Jughead knows it because they don’t know when that might be but it’s enough to humour Jughead and he listens. _We do this because there’s love here_ , he convinces himself. _It’s deeper than our bones._

He touches her centre and his fingers slide in so easily, it makes Jughead shudder, closing his eyes to steady himself. Veronica fakes innocence when she smiles shyly and keeps her lip between her teeth. 

Jughead knows that this is the way it has to be because there love is stolen and secret, bone tearing and skin burning but that’s what they signed up for. _Maybe we’re not strong enough to leave_ , he thinks as he runs his thumb over Veronica’s clit, watching her hips move with his strokes.

 _This is what we need,_ he reminds himself. _Desperate fucking need._  

He leans forward with his hand still resting in her, rubbing her slowly, letting her moan against him when he reaches up for a kiss, softly first. Harsh fucking bites of her lips that he loves so much. Her soft sighs are the most beautiful sound to Jughead and he’d listen to it all day if she was all his. He’s so hard for her but keeps focused on her a little longer.  
  
Veronica keeps her eyes open when she pulls Jughead closer to him, sucking in his tongue and dragging her fingers down his arm, forcing him to keep pressure on her clit. He takes his hand off her only for a moment to pull her satin shirt off and then her bra, sitting back, he admires her entire body.

He licks his lips before biting down on her neck, kissing his way down to her chest and taking a nipple in his mouth. He runs his tongue over it and uses his fingers on the other one when Veronica sighs his name. 

“I love you, Veronica, you know that, right?”

“I love you too,” she whispers back.

Using his knees, Jughead spreads her wider. He sits back again to admire the swell of her hips and the rise and fall of her breasts when she’s laying in front of him. _She takes every fucking bit of my breath away_ , he remembers. 

He reaches out again to draw circles on her clit and again, she arches closer to Jughead’s hand, biting down to steady herself so he slows down, watching her beg for more without words.

Jughead kisses his way down Veronica’s body, resting his tongue on the dips of her hips and tasting the gap between her pussy and thigh with teeth dragging on her skin. _Finally_ , he thinks before sinking his face into her pussy, tasting her.

Veronica’s thighs press tightly around his head and she clings onto his hair, pulling him closer to her while his tongue works on her, “Fuck, Jughead,” she moans, “Harder!”

Jughead smiles against her, not needing to be told twice and he flicks his tongue faster, sucking in her flesh at the same time.

“Fuck, right there!” she begs.

Jughead knows that Veronica has to be in control but this time, he was taking over. Her words play in his mind as he considers turning her around and fucking her from behind, satisfying every desperate fucking need he has.

Or loving her softly, with his eyes on her eyes and her soft touch on his face.

He works harder, tasting her more, tasting her _harder_. When he flicks her clit faster and faster, she loses it under him, shaking with her thighs around his head.

Veronica’s body shakes with heavy breaths, chest heaving while trying to catch her breath. Jughead makes his way up her body, dotting kisses on both nipples, tongue smoothing up her neck and to her jaw, ready to kiss her lips. 

With her voice shaking she says; “Don’t kiss me.”

Jughead jerks back to look at her. “You don’t want a taste?” a smug smirk playing on him.

“No,” she says, moving him away.

“You love yourself too much to not enjoy yourself, Princess,” he teases, rolling his eyes before placing kisses on her neck again.

Her distaste was not matched with the movements of her body, she arches closer with every one of Jughead’s touches, bucking closer to him as he touches gently her smooth pussy. 

Jughead licks Veronica’s jaw, biting at her. He places his tongue on her lips and she bites back. “Don’t piss me off,” she hums.

He smiles against her. “Tell me that you don’t love yourself and I’ll leave you alone.”

“I won’t lie like that,” she says, opening her legs further again.

Jughead licks her lips, this time lingering a little longer to see what she would do. Veronica accepts the challenge and lets his tongue into her mouth which makes Jughead weak. _She’s so sexy,_ he thinks. 

He reaches down to her pussy, growing weak from controlling himself. His fingers circle her clit again and she moves against him, sensitivity overriding her. He pulls them out slowly, tasting his fingers before offering them to Veronica. “You’re my favourite treat, baby,” he reminds her.

Veronica takes his fingers into her mouth, swirling her tongue around them making Jughead’s chest feel tight and his whole body tense in frustration. He wastes no time in pulling out his belt, snapping it in the air and pulling the rest of his clothes off.

“Fuck me,” Veronica orders.

Jughead gets on his knees between her, putting in his fingers slowly, pulling them out quickly. He returns them to her mouth, watching Veronica taste herself as he slowly eases his cock into her, feeling her warmth around him and throwing his head back while she keeps licking his fingers. _She so wet_ , he thinks, letting the noise of her moans wash over him.

“Faster,” she orders again.

Jughead doesn’t remember the last time he was so turned on. The faster he moves, the faster her tongue laps over his fingers but he refuses to look from the realisation that he might not last long. “Veronica…” he says, pounding.

“More,” she begs, fingers digging into his thighs, “give me more.”

“You want more?” he asks, “You want to taste yourself?”

She nods with a smug smirk on her face and it turns Jughead on even more. But she points in between her, “Give me that.”

Jughead’s voice hitched while he pulls out of her slowly, he's dripping wet from her, crawling up her body, placing his hard cock by her soft lips. Her mouth eases as she takes all of him in between her lips, sucking the tip at first before moving further down. Jughead couldn’t believe how sexy she looks with him in her mouth and her eyes don't leave his when she licks him underneath before pulling away, smacking her lips and saying; “More.”

He moves back down her body, biting both her nipples and slipping back inside her, thrusting harder. Veronica clings onto him harder when he pounds into her, holding her knees back and down, spreading her so wide. She holds her breath, only letting go to gasp, “Come for me, baby,” he says.  
  
“Get up here,” she commands, barely audible but Jughead pulls out, a shake runs through him from holding back and not letting go inside her. He offers his cock again that this time, she takes greedily. Sucking all of him, pumping him with her hand.

Jughead doesn’t breathe, “Fuck, Veronica, I’m gonna…”

She stops abruptly. “Move.”

Veronica pushes him away and Jughead goes back down to her pussy; legs spread and ready for him to go back in. He thrusts harder and faster, feeling Veronica clench around him as she scratches at his skin. “Jug, I’m coming,” she says, moving her hips against him and rubbing her clit at the same time. 

She lets go with an exhale and a pause. Jughead can feel her pulsing around him, he grabs on to her knees and slams against her, watching her hand run slow circles on her clit. “Fuck,” Jughead says in a breath, leaning down to kiss her lips but Veronica clenches on tighter around him, riding Jughead’s release.  
  
He collapses on Veronica with his lips still on her. She lets go of a strained sigh with her hair splayed around her that Jughead tucks behind her ear. He looks at her flushed skin and dazed smile that he kisses three times in a row. Swollen lips, bites on her chest, red slapped thighs. “You look so peaceful,” he tells her.

“You look like you’re mine,” she replies.

This was the way it always was. Desperation mixed with the looming feeling that they’ll never be close enough. Not knowing how long it was going to be until they got to be together again so the sex with always laced with a hit of malice and uncertainty.

It was so wrong. So wrong that it felt so right. Natural was never something he had experienced but forced, strained and pressured is what he liked and she was every single type of wrong, he felt like fluid when he was with her. Fluid, water, fucking blood dripping when he was with her. He didn't want sugary sweet and hummingbirds. He was red hot flames and spitfire words when she whispers all sorts of poison in his ears. She was tightening his noose and she kicked the block from under him. He succumbed to her willingly. He wanted to scratch at the dirt on his hands and knees for her, anything to please her. Get her lost, make her forget the prim and proper. He wanted her to get back to the root of herself - she was just as messed up messy as he is. He ripped pearls from her neck with his teeth.

They lie in the mess of the sheets, the mess of the being together and the mess of the day approaching. “I don’t want to start another day,” Veronica whispers against Jughead.

“Neither,” he agrees, tracing patterns on her skin.

“Working late again tonight?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jughead sniggers. “Two late nights in a row?” he asks. “Won’t people ask questions?”

“Forget it, Jughead,” she mutters against his lips, straddling him with her teeth dragging. “It’s Riverdale," Veronica smiles to the rising sun as it washes over them but even with the blood in Jughead veins slowing and the thump, thump, thumping in his temples letting up, he smiles with a calmness in his soul when he thinks about seeing her again tonight.


	2. Smoke and Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunlight cuts through the window and mixes with the smoke plume that Jughead tries to blow out of Veronica’s bedroom window of the Pembrooke. It’s fall, soft, misted light that dances on his skin. 
> 
> It’s hideously beautiful. His smell lingers on her skin and she feels his entire body’s weight still on her. The way his smooth lips kiss her softly on her breasts, how his attention is solely on her. The way he tastes her with her knees at his temples. He murmurs her own name in her ear and tells her how much he loves being with her. 
> 
> He leans against the window frame in nothing but his underwear hanging on his sharp hips and Southside Serpents tattoo on his shoulder. 
> 
> She thinks she might love him. 
> 
> She knows that she does when his eyes glow in dimming light when he smiles at her. 
> 
> Veronica never wants to leave this fucking bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just more Jughead and Veronica smut and angst, because I can never let anyone be happy ever.

_**Smoke and Mirrors** _

* * *

 

It started with an awkward conversation.

Or at least that’s what she’s telling herself.

La Bonne Nuit was under the protection of the Pretty Poisons and he had gone there to plead his case - the Southside Serpents were under the impression they were protecting her and La Bonne Nuit and that was what he was there to do. There was something sickly satisfying about seeing the Serpent King on his hands and knees, begging for business. He was more annoying than ever when it came to his precious Southside and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Yet, neither was Toni. Veronica likes her best friend’s boyfriend but Toni was the rightful heir to that Snake infested pit.

But somewhere between her hiding in the Letterman jacket that belonged to Reggie who was too much, too quickly and Jughead still trying to defend his own best friend for some reason that Veronica couldn’t fathom, Veronica let Jughead Jones fuck her against the bar top with her high end tequila that daddy paid for on his hands and him dripping down her legs.

 In the end it wasn’t about Pretty Poisons or Southside, and it never really had anything about her unsure feelings about Reggie or how much Jughead loves Archie.

Veronica barely thought about her best friend at that time, and Jughead could barely make Betty’s name out of his mouth without it sounding even a little foreign.

 They both gave each other something they needed in that moment, and Veronica hated that.

 Veronica’s cinnamon laced perfume tastes good on Jughead’s tongue.

 

* * *

 

 He irritated her throughout math, he asked her where Reggie was even though Reggie sat directly behind him. He kissed Betty so deeply in the hallway that Veronica could almost taste it too. When he stared at her while he made out with Betty, Veronica’s heart beat a little faster and she wondered if he could hear it.

 Somehow, he ended up in the back bathroom at La Bonne Nuit before the opening act. Archie was the one who dropped him off. The irony was sickening.

 "Don’t tell Betty,” he says. His words in her mouth. Veronica feels the syllables of her best friend’s names on her tongue.

 “As if I fucking would.”

 Jughead pulls down her jeans, over her calf muscles and buries his face in Veronica’s pussy still covered in lace. “Tell me you don’t love me,” she whimpers as her nails scratch at his neck.

 “What?” he asks with a pause.

 Veronica looks down between her legs, rolling her eyes when he looks up at her with his tongue still on her covered clit. “Tell me you don’t fucking love me.”

 “You have issues,” he laughs. He still has his leather jacket on his shoulders and it proves to her that this is the right move. He’s not charming and caring and loving like Archie. And he’s not about to elope on the next flight out to marry her like Reggie. “I love this…” he says against her, licking her, pulling down lace that follows her jeans. “Your pussy is so pretty, V…”

She pulls at the hem of her woollen sweater as he flicks her clit, sliding in two fingers that he pulls out so slowly that it’s almost painful. “Fuck I hate you,” she murmurs.

“And I hate you too, Princess,” he says with a kiss on her core. “If that’s what you want to hear.”

 “Fuck, right there! Fuck!” Veronica hisses through her teeth. “Tell me you don’t lick Betty like this.”

 She knows she’s pushing the boundaries, but there was something about the way Jughead is all fingers and smirks against her clit that pushes Veronica. Jughead chuckles and moves up her body, kissing her so deeply, she tastes herself. “She doesn’t taste this good either.”

 Veronica takes his neck between her teeth.

 He gets up, unbuckles his belt and pulls his cock from his own jeans. Veronica wastes no time and taking him between her lips, running her tongue up and down his shaft. She can tell he’s trying not to, but he wraps his fist in her hair and pushes her down a little further. Sometimes, when she sucks him just right, he bucks against her and she feels him in the back of her throat.

 “I’m gonna -”

 He doesn’t last.

 He’s all over her face and lips. She kisses him goodbye. “That was the last time, Jones.”

 “We’ll see,” he says, she can tell he doesn’t believe her. “I can’t keep my lips off you, Princess.”

 She loves the attention he gives her. But she loves that he doesn’t love her even more. She thinks of all the reasons why she doesn’t deserve people loving her but she hides the little bit of pain behind her darkened and smudged lipstick that tastes like Jughead Jones.

 

* * *

 Gladys Jones had her eye on Veronica and she knew it. Business with Gladys took Veronica to the Whyte Wyrm and Jughead’s cocky grin had Veronica’s skirt rising a little further up her thighs and her smile, a little more sultry.

 It amazed Veronica just how hard she’d work for Jughead’s fingers. He tells his mommy that he’ll drop Veronica off home, Gladys needs reassurance that Hiram Lodge’s precious cargo is being looked after. Jughead insists that Veronica is being looked after in the best way as he watches Veronica’s hips with a lick of his lips. Who says that chivalry is dead?

 Gladys gave Veronica a smile that read straight through her and Veronica catches the matriarchs hiss in her son’s ear; “You need a girl as sharp as her…”

 They end up parked in the carpark of Pop’s, ready for another night at La Bonne Nuit.

 Her thighs are shaky and she hates that she’s thinking of riding him all over again.

She can barely comprehend what he’s saying but his grip on the steering wheel just emphasises his fingers. The car isn’t even moving but the neon lights of Pop’s shine on his lips and she needs them on her now.

 He babbles on about something, she’s not sure what but she doesn’t really care. She grabs his wrist from the steering wheel and places it on her thigh. “In me,” she demands. “Now.”

 He smiles at her while he watches her shimmy her panties down her legs and they drop on the floor of Sweet Pea’s truck.

 Jughead places rough, dirty kisses on her neck. His fingers slide in and out of her pussy so smoothly, she feels him shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “Fuck, V,” he murmurs, “So wet for me?” He has his fingers inside of her and his thumb rubbing on her clit. It’s a fucking turn on when she watches his jaw tense and his mouth drop because he can barely hold back from fucking her. “I wish I could pull you out of the truck and fuck you on the hood of it,” he begs.

“But then Betty might see,” she spits back.

She comes when she watches his eyes darken.

He kisses her almost sweetly with his fist in her hair and his lips a little softer this time. “Do you know what you do to me, princess?” He begs for his release, she slams the door in his face. “You really gonna do me like that, baby?” he asks, calling out of the truck window, wiping her on his jacket.

She blows him a kiss as she walks up the steps to work.

She wonders if she’s sharp enough for the likes of the Serpents.

 

* * *

 It’s almost midnight and she’s wrapped in her expensive sheets when he calls.

Even when it’s so late at night and he’s at home, he carries an air of desperation in his tone. “I couldn’t stop thinking of you today.”

Veronica had made Jughead swear that they wouldn’t communicate like this. Their arrangement was good as it was, but she couldn’t help but clench her legs together and inhale deeply. “Jughead, it’s too late to come over.”

He’s silent on the other end, nothing but the sound of his crackling cigarette and slight humourless laugh. “Veronica, I didn’t call because I want to have sex.”

“Then why did you?”

She hangs on for his very words. Words that she doesn’t really want to hear, but in her heart of hearts, she knows they’re coming.

She can almost feel his cocky grin on her skin already, even from Sunnyside Trailer Park and she’s way up in the Penthouse Suite. “I just wanted to hear your voice, beautiful.”

Veronica hides behind a smile she knows she shouldn’t wear. “No feelings, remember?” she reminds him. He agrees in a moan. “But now you make me feel like kissing you.”

“I’ll dream about kissing you tonight.”

The tenderness is sickening.

 

* * *

 She can almost feel his hands on her. But they’re not. They’re on Betty instead and Betty is all smiles and bright coloured eyes. Veronica’s best friend looks so happy when she’s in pastel coloured cotton and he’s not in his Southside jacket.

He looks ridiculous when he pretends to be a normal kid at a normal school with a normal life and a normal girlfriend. Southside still hangs metaphorically from his shoulders and he still hides those cigarettes from his girlfriend in his pocket where he keeps the gum that he thinks hides the smell. Veronica loves the smell. It reminds her of post-sex and Jughead’s sleepy post-come tone.

“Veronica!” Betty calls, she wraps her arms around her best friend.

She can smell Jughead on Betty’s sweater.

Veronica feels a tightness in her chest but she wills it away. She shouldn’t feel this caught up about dick. That’s what she tells herself, at least it keeps the guilt at bay.

“What a cute little gathering,” Jughead slurs through a mouth full of soda, tongue swirling around a straw that Veronica pays too much attention to.

Until Archie’s shoulder touches her.

They stand there talking about class and how Reggie might fail science but she blocks it out when Jughead’s laugh seems to echo through the hall and his frame leans against the lockers like he owns the place.

She clenches her thighs together when his hands end up in the air and his fingers dance on Betty’s shoulders.

Archie and Betty leave and Veronica feels like she missed out on most of the conversation but she has a gut feeling that maybe she should be following them.

“You look tense, Princess,” Jughead says, following her, hand on her shoulder and his breath on her neck.

“Fuck off, Jones,” she tells him politely.

“Meet me at the Pembrooke tonight. Forget wearing clothes.”

There were two things that pissed her off about that order.

Firstly, the next meeting between the two of them would definitely not be including clothing.

Secondly, he had just invited her to her own home.

He was going to fuck her while her parents were sleeping.

 

* * *

He dove straight between her thighs from the moment he made it into her room. Archie had only ever been in here twice and Jughead seemed to look even rougher than usual when he was between her white sheets. 

But his dark hair between her thighs contrasted with Egyptian cotton made her thighs shaky and before she knew it, when he put the second finger in her pussy and flicked her clit again, she was slamming into his face with his name spilling from her mouth.

He gets her on all fours on her own bed and she wraps the same white sheets in her fists. “You look so beautiful from behind, Veronica,” he tells her while he slaps her ass.

The sound of his skin slapping against her ass was making her wetter. “Fuck me harder,” she insists.

So he reaches to the front of her and wraps his hand around her pretty little neck.

Her eyes roll back, he doesn’t mess around.

His cock feels so good as it hits her just in the right way. The way she begs for.

“Tell me, baby,” he commands. “Does it feel good?”

She gets off one hand and brings it to her own neck, coaxing him. “Harder.”

He manages it for a little bit. But his warmth spreads across her back and drips down her ass.

She comes again against his hand and he kisses her pussy one more time. Then her lips.

“You make me want to lose my mind, Princess.”

How does she tell him she thinks she’s losing her mind a little too? “It’s all a novelty, Jughead,” she tries to convince him.

His smile tells her he doesn’t believe her. “Whatever you say.”

“This won’t last forever, you know that right?”

The answer he doesn’t give speaks loud and clear.

She lets him fall asleep on her chest. Just this once.

She falls asleep to the sound of his heart. She wakes up hating it.

 

* * *

 “I’ve noticed that Jughead always seems busy,” Betty says, brushing her hair with her bone handled brush.

Veronica looks away from chiffon curtains in Betty’s room to try and ignore the feeling of Jughead between her legs.

Seven hours ago.

“Maybe he is,” Veronica says, checking her nails, avoiding her friend’s gaze. “The Serpents must take a lot out of him.”

It was a sharp jab at the Serpents that Betty pretends not to hate. It was a sharp jab at her best friend. Veronica takes the most out of him when she’s on top of him at Sunnyside Trailer Park.

Betty’s makeup is all pink and pretty and her bedroom smells like rose oil, it burns Veronica’s nose and her face feels like it’s turning red.

“I just wish he was the old Jug.”

Veronica knows what she means. She’s searching for the Jug that she fell in love with. “I’m sure he’s in there somewhere.”

“Maybe he’s right. Maybe this has been him all along. Some kind of dark cloud.”

At that moment, Veronica hates Jughead even more than usual.

Because as much as she feels for her friend, it’s only another three hours and forty minutes until he’d be in fresh sheets at the Pembrooke, smoking a post-sex cigarette.

 

* * *

 “I still hate you, you know,” she promises him.

His amber red cigarette tip bounces up and down while he laughs. “You’re a bad liar, Lodge.”

She hates the irony of it. Because Lodges were known for their lying. It was one of the only things they were good for.

Her perfume is smeared all over his chest and burgundy red lipstick sticks to his bruised collarbone. “I’m not lying.”

She doesn’t want to be lying. She wants to hate him. The whole thing was a mess and she doesn’t know where to start tidying it up. Jughead Jones was out of bounds, she shouldn’t be sleeping with him,

But how do you stop drifting towards the one other person who seems to be just as messed up as you?

She lets him fuck her against her bedroom window. Maybe it’ll help her get him out of her system.

“Tell me you hate me,” he says as she comes with her lip between her lip and her eyes screwed shut.

Maybe he was right, she was a terrible liar.

 

* * *

 Archie is sweet but his bedroom has a single bed and it hasn’t changed since he was a kid, she can tell.

She stands at Archie’s window and Betty is in her house looking out of her own window. Veronica wonders if Betty can read every single touch on her skin.

“You’re so beautiful,” Archie tells Veronica from his bed with the checkered sheets. “I love you so much.”

That’s what it always is. He loves her. She’s so beautiful. He loves her so much. She’s his everything.

Maybe she wants to be more than kind words and love.

Maybe she wants desperation and to not feel so… different.

Maybe she needs someone who accepts she’s fucked up and dark sometimes. Maybe she needs someone like that too.

 

* * *

 She’s downright filthy kind of kisses on Jughead’s pale skin. Her teeth dig a little too deep into his chest and she grabs him while he’s semi-hard and wraps her lips around him, feeling him grow in her mouth.

“No,” he says, hands at her chin, guiding her up from himself. “V…”

Her lips almost pop when they slide off his length and his smile is genuine and caring. She scowls at the soft expression and he rolls his eyes in return. “What’s wrong?” she asks, crawling up his body.

Jughead shakes his head and tucks himself back into his jeans that seem rough and harsh against her cotton sheets. He puts pressure on her back with the palm of his hand that makes her lean into him, her chest settling on his. “Tonight, we cuddle.”

Veronica scoffs but the expression he gives her is dead serious. “Cuddle?”

“You know,” he teases, “Cuddling - not fucking. Where you and I lay here and talk about shit until we fall asleep and you don’t need to wake up in the morning feeling like shit?”

Veronica’s heart drops for a moment. Does he feel like shit every morning he wakes up with her? Does he not enjoy it as much as she does? She wonders why she even cares, but she does. “You don’t like fucking?”

Jughead groans and runs a hand through his hair. “Baby, I like it too much… with you.”

She doesn’t push him, she thinks he’s said too much and she doesn’t want to make things harder on him too. But while she lays in his arms in her bed and listens to his heart beat, she knows that maybe she likes it too much with him too.

 

* * *

 “I never knew you preferred chocolate shakes,” he says, sliding into the booth next at Pop’s during her lunch break. He takes her shake and drinks half without batting an eyelid.

“I fucking hate you,” she groans, taking what’s left of her shake back.

“Ah, Princess,” he drawls, his fingers sliding up her thigh. “If that were true, then why are you still here next to me?”

She feels his fingers run along the edging of her panties and he finds the delicate skin of her pussy. She squeezes her thighs so his wrist gets caught but the way he shifts in his chair tells her he’s just as desperate as she is. “You’ve blocked me in,” she tries to tell him steadily but fails.

He leans into her ear and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek before taking his hand away. “You know I shouldn’t be here.”

With that, he slides out of the booth. The six words he just whispered to her tell her a lot more than she wishes to know.

He knows he shouldn’t be there, Pop’s is not discreet enough. But maybe he was starting to feel like he can’t live without her.

 

* * *

 He’s a huge smoke cloud against his trailer, leaning with his leather jacket on, Veronica feels like she wants to fuck him right then and there.

She’s still in her Pop’s uniform. Chocolate smears and grease stains all over her, but she doesn’t give a fuck. The sooner she has Jughead in between her, the better.

He flicks his cigarette butt in her direction and the needy look in his eye makes her ego almost burst. She loves the attention. She loves the way he licks his lips every time he sees her. “Jug…” she says quietly, approaching him in her heels that she works in that were worth more money than a month’s worth of wages at Pop’s.

He slips his fingers into the band of her apron and pulls her against his hips. “Princess.”

Veronica’s eyes dart around, searching for people who might see. “What if someone sees us?” she asks, closing her eyes to the feeling of his tongue on her neck.

“Right now,” he moans. “I don’t care.”

He leads her into the trailer. Slipping off her heels for her, untying her apron, unzipping her dress.

He turns on the bath for her that’s a lot smaller than hers but his attention to temperature and the way he lathers her soapy body makes her feel like she’s not on this earth.

“You’re so...” he trails off, tracing a water droplet across her breast. “I love spending time with you…”

She doesn’t reply.

“Sometimes I feel like this whole thing is crazy, but I can’t see me living any other way,” she murmurs.

“What?” he asks, sitting on his knees with his head leaning on the bath ledge next to her. “You mean us? This?”

Veronica nods. “Yeah.”

Jughead wears an out of place smile and his eyes brighten in the fake, flickering light of the bathroom. “Are you telling me this might be more than sex?”

Veronica doesn’t want to reply. “Maybe i’ve said too much.”

Jughead’s chuckle is dark. “I thought maybe I was the only one, Princess. But your mind, your everything - it fits in with mine.”

Again, she falls asleep in his arms and wakes up hating not only him, but herself.

 

* * *

Sunlight cuts through the window and mixes with the smoke plume that Jughead tries to blow out of Veronica’s bedroom window of the Pembrooke. It’s fall, soft, misted light that dances on his skin. 

It’s hideously beautiful. His smell lingers on her skin and she feels his entire body’s weight still on her. The way his smooth lips kiss her softly on her breasts, how his attention is solely on her. The way he tastes her with her knees at his temples. He murmurs her own name in her ear and tells her how much he loves being with her.

He leans against the window frame in nothing but his underwear hanging on his sharp hips and Southside Serpents tattoo on his shoulder.

She thinks she might love him.

She knows that she does when his eyes glow in dimming light when he smiles at her.

Veronica never wants to leave this fucking bedroom.

* * *

Archie tells Veronica that he misses her. She misses aspects of him too. 

The music is loud and Josie’s voice clashes in Veronica’s ears as she tries to control a drunk Archie Andrews who apologises for things Veronica doesn’t even care about. Reggie rescues her with a sorry smile that annoys her just as much as Archie’s pleads do.

The Southside Serpents all lean against the bar with Fangs dancing next to Jughead whose face tells her that he doesn’t really want to be there and Sweet Pea’s discomfort is too apparent.

She makes her way to the bar, disguising her whispers while she wipes down the bar. “I need you now,” she whispers to the Serpent King.

He’s scuffs his boots on the floor. “I don’t like it when I see you talking to Archie or Reggie.”

The words are almost suffocating.

It’s like clockwork. She tells Reggie she’s going to get something from up at Pop’s. Jughead doesn’t give his boys any excuse. He just leaves.

She’s unbuckling his belt against the back wall of Pop’s Chocklit Shoppe with her skirt grating against the rough bricks of the building.

“Don’t you realise,” he asks, with Veronica on her knees and her mouth around his cock. “That I need you all to myself?”

Her tongue lays on the underside of his dick and one of his knees give way.

He guides her up on to her feet with his fingers under her chin, taking her tongue into his mouth. “Jug,” she begs, “Fuck me.”

She slips off her panties and his fingers find her clit. “Baby, I need you every single moment of the fucking day.”

His fingers are in her and she has his lip between her teeth.

It’s somewhere between her hands steadying her against the wall and his jeans rubbing against the back of her thighs. Jughead digs his nails into her hips and for the first time in days, she feels like she’s finally complete. She misses him when he’s not around, she hates him more and more for needing him.

Sometimes, stolen fucks behind Pop’s is as good as it gets.

His fist is tangled in her hair like clockwork again and she feels herself coming when he whispers. “I missed you so much, Veronica, it hurts.”

She tightens around his cock and muffles a scream of his name. “Fuck, Jug!”

“I love you Veronica,” he says, coming inside of her, slowing down his pace.

She straightens her skirt, he pulls up his jeans.

As much as she wants to tell him that he doesn’t really love her, she softens when he kisses her lips and brushes hair out of her eyes. “Don’t get too cosy with Reggie, you hear?”

She makes Jughead promise he’ll meet her at her house tonight.

* * *

 Veronica’s soul hurts.

La Bonne Nuit takes everything from her and what little she has left is used in faking a happy family.

Laying in Jughead’s arm at Pembrooke is all she has left.

He didn’t hesitate when she asked him to come over. She distracted herself with blowing Jughead. She fucked him from on top. She fell asleep in his arms.

Jughead kisses her softly on her temple and brushes her hair out of her eyes. “How long do you want to do this for?”

The question is open and endless. Veronica knows he could mean anything. How long does she want to keep sleeping together? Because the limits are busted down and non existant. How long does she want to keep hanging out for? Because the unwritten contract they metaphorically signed had expired. How long does she want him in the house? Because the one-time fuck has turned into countless days. How long does she want to keep pretending for?

Because when she’s laying on his heartbeat, it’s everything but a lie.

He fingers her to another countless orgasm with his tongue trailing on her skin. “Tell me you don’t love me,” she asks. No longer for the sensation that finally, someone doesn’t demand more of her. Love.

Now, it was to hear the truth.

It doesn’t come. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t say anything at all. Jughead lets Veronica pull her fingers through his hair and he hums with his eyes shut. “Veronica, you know I’ll keep doing this for as long as you want me to, right?”

“Yes.” Her own honesty scares her.

He smiles at her and she smiles back.

She never wants any of this to end.

 

* * *

 “Betty,” Veronica mutters and it feels thick in her mouth.

Jughead doesn’t lift his head from where it lays on the sofa gifted from Cheryl in the locked doors of La Bonne Nuit. “What about her?”

“We never speak about her.”

Jughead’s eyes darken in flickering candles. She reads sadness from him. Or maybe she was reading her own sadness and twisted dreams and wants. “It was never about her.”

“Maybe you should let her go.”

The words escape her before she can take them back. His eyebrows raise and his fists clench. Everything she had tried to hide is laid out in front of them both and there’s nothing she can do about it. “It was never about her, Veronica,” he murmurs, words so soft. “This is always about you and me.”

He doesn’t say much else, but maybe she can read him a little more now.

A little more now that she’s in too deep with him.

 

* * *

 Toni Topaz is beautiful. Veronica knows it and so does Jughead.

Toni had been sitting in the trailer for two hours. She initially said she’d be there for one. But the invitation to stay for snacks was too hard to resist for Toni and Jughead barely got to spend time with his best friend…

Veronica sits at the kitchen table with her legs crossed and her nails tapping on the kitchen table.

Jughead drags his eyes over Veronica with a desperate bite of his lower lip while Toni chatters away about the Pretty Poisons and Cheryl.

Veronica reads Toni and she knows Toni isn’t stupid. Her eyes flicker between Jughead and Veronica. “Am I interrupting something?”

Jughead moves his beanie on his head and Veronica stops tapping.

One hour past due.

Jughead fakes shock terribly and it makes Veronica laugh while leaning back in the mismatched chair. His fingers copy hers and tap the table, “No,” is all he says.

Veronica groans at his stupidity.

“I sense…. Sexual tension.”

Veronica locks eyes with Jughead, searching for any kind of excuse that they can come up with. But they don’t. And she sucks at lying.

Jughead speaks for them both; “T, you can keep a secret, right?”

She insists she can and when she walks out of the trailer, she whispers to Veronica; “You take care of him.”

 

* * *

 They kiss in the rain outside of Pop’s and for once, she feels free.

It was somewhat liberating kissing in a public place knowing that anyone could turn up and see them.

But what are people still doing out at 4am?

What’s usually fast paced and stolen. Heart tearing and secretive feels soft and loving when his hands aren’t working so quick on her. Instead they’re gentle on her hips and when he pulls away, he traces the shape of her lips with his thumb. But his mouth and his words spill out and he says; “I want to fuck you so bad, Veronica, that it’s taking my everything not to fuck you on the hood of this car…”

Sweet Pea wouldn’t appreciate it, and listening to Jughead’s want for her in the form of words makes her so wet, she forces his hand into her lace panties. She almost orgasms on the spot and he loves it.

They don’t have enough time, and she needs to go home to wash yesterday afternoon’s grease and chocolate from her clothes and three hours ago’s whiskey from her skin. “Take me home?” she asks.

“Yours? Or mine?” he asks, quickly kissing her on the cheek.

“Wherever you are is enough for me.”

Jughead’s smile glows in the neon lights of Pop’s. She knows he feels the same way.

 

* * *

 The way he describes their small world is so beautiful, she’s almost convinced that they’re meant to be. He tells her that she’s soul singing, skin tearing and jaw breaking when she’s with him.

He makes pretty promises when she’s riding him on top with her nails in his chest and his fingers on her hips, setting her pace.

Her hands grab her own breast, rolling nubs between her forefingers and thumbs and his eyes are only on her. “You’re otherworldly, beautiful,” he promises.

His kisses taste like nicotine and mountain dew.

He reaches up to tighten around her neck, his fingers fit so perfectly, everything leads her to believe that this was it - this is who she was made for.

While his fingers are tight, his thumb is gentle and brushes her soft skin. She comes on his cock and his faster, more jolted jerks against her tell her that he’s coming too 

When he takes his hand from around her throat, she slides down next to him. His tongue smooths over her neck. “Tell me you love me, Princess.”

The halt in his breathing tells her that he’s scared for the answer. The smug smirk on his face tells her he’s trying not to care too much.

But when she’s in his arms and steadying her mind with the sound of his heart, how can she lie?

“I think I do.”

“You do?” he challenges.

The smell on his skin is her cinnamon laced perfume and his menthol cigarettes. “I do love you.”

He doesn’t press for more.

Instead, he closes his eyes and pulls her arms around himself. She realises, he needs a safety barrier too.

She lets him be the little spoon.

 

* * *

 The fact that he has trust issues feels ironic to Veronica. They ignore Betty in the subject, but his mom and dad take everything from him and leave nothing left for him to give.

Veronica feels the same about her own.

He lies in her bed at 3AM with bloodied, bruised skin and secrets from his mom. He holds memories of whiskey on school nights when he was a kid.

“Sometimes I want to run away.”

There was something calming about Jughead in her sheets while he carried the weight of Southside with him. Knowing that right now, she and her space was also his safe space made her feel special.

For once, she was needed for things deeper than herself.

She runs her fingers through his hair, she kisses him softly on the skin where he hurt most. She tries to tell him without words, that she cares.

This time, she lets him listen to her beating heart. His head rests on her chest and his long legs hang over the edge of her bed.

She feels like she doesn’t sleep when she worries about him, and every time he wakes up, he gives her a reassuring smile.

“How come you came here?” she asks him quietly.

Jughead looks up from his resting spot, tracing pattern on the swell of her breasts. “I don’t want to have to explain myself to be understood.”

She reads through the lines. No one understands him. Until she came around.

He slides his hands up her thighs, slipping off her panties. He bites down on the thin skin of her neck and cups her breast from behind, rubbing them gently.

When he slides in from behind her as they lay on their sides, she feels like they’re closer than ever when her ass sits in his lap and he moves so slowly against her and with purpose.

He whispers things in her ear that make her blush. They make her feel shy. They make her reconsider her everything. He reaches in front to rub her clit and she realises no one took the time to learn her body the way Jughead Jones has.

They come at the same time, with his entire body laying behind hers and she closes her eyes to tell him; “I’m in love with you, Jughead.”

Jughead’s sigh is a summary of how they both feel. “I’m in love with you too, Veronica Lodge.”

 

* * *

Class drags on. Cheryl speaks in quips and sharp stabs and Jughead sits behind Veronica.

Veronica concentrates on pretending to concentrate. The teacher buys it, Jughead doesn’t. 

His text messages that she reads under her desk tell her just how many times Jughead wants to bend her over tonight. More of them tell her just how much he misses her. He kicks her chair and she smiles. Anything to show her his attention.

She replies to him quickly and when Veronica reads the message Jughead sends about spreading her wide and eating her out, she squeezes her thighs together and cracks her neck. Counting hours is strenuous work.

The bell rings and she rushes to get out of the classroom, the sooner she makes it through the day, the sooner she’ll be meeting Jughead in the trailer.

She’s stopped down the corridor by familiar hands on her hips, slowing her down. “Now, now, Princess,” he drawls, “In a rush, are you?”

It takes every single fibre of her being not to spin around on her heels and take his lip between her teeth, shoving her hands down his jeans. Working her way down his neck.

Veronica holds back her smile.

Archie and Betty make their way behind Jughead whose fingers seem to snag on her skirt and his sigh sounds heavy and defeated. “We should meet at Pop’s this afternoon,” Archie begs and Betty meets with a smile.

Jughead and Veronica lock eyes and Veronica can almost count down the delay. An extra two hours of waiting.

Betty links her arm with Jughead’s. “Sounds like a great idea!”

Veronica shakes her head. “I’m really busy this afternoon, guys…”

“Come on, V!” Archie argues. “It’ll be like old times.”

Veronica searches for excuses knowing that none would be believed but when Jughead says; “Come on, Veronica. It won’t be the same without you…” she can almost hear the suffering in his voice.

Archie and Betty bounce ahead, happy with the upcoming plan. Veronica’s face is sour. “I hate you.”

Jughead chuckles. “Princess, if you hated me so much, you wouldn’t be coming,” he whispers in her hair behind his girlfriend and his best friend.

“You owe me big time.”

“Just tell me how I owe you,” he whispers again. “I love you that much, I’ll do anything.”

Veronica owns the hallway. She doesn’t know who she hates more.

 

* * *

"it's two AM, tell me the truth," he laughs on the other end of the phone. 

Her hands still dance on the lace edging of her lingerie, she still smells like he's fresh on her skin but the distorted sound of his chuckling reminds her that he's not here with her. "Two AM probably holds the most lies."

"That right there was a blatant lie," Jughead says with a slight cutting edge to his tone that makes Veronica lick her lips. "Two AM holds every single truth ever told." 

"Tell me something then," she coaxes. sigh heavy in her throat. "Tell me something that's so obviously a two AM truth."

"There's never a fucking day that goes by where I don't want to be with you." 

Veronica notices the manic edge this time. 

 She lies in the sheets that still have him in them, she looks at the flannel that hangs on the chair that usually hangs from his hips. She knows the sound on the other side of the phone that he gives off with desperation for her that belongs to his heart. "My turn."

"Always your turn, V," he laughs lightly. 

"There's never a day, Jughead Jones, where I don't want you to be with me. Not since I first saw you at Pop's."

He tells her in great detail just how badly he's going to fuck her tomorrow and how much he loves her at the same time. 

* * *

 He tells her that she’s his everything but there’s this part deep down, at the bottom of her rib cage that hurts and tells her that she’s not.

It’s her fluttering heart and his tense fists while they’re La Bonne Nuit. Their secret hushes in dark corners.

Forbidden.

Smoke and mirrors hide Jughead’s eyes but she sees them, brighter than ever. “I love you,” is whispered over the passing of disgustingly expensive vodka shots that are being spilled down seventeen year old’s chins.

She whispers it back as she wipes down a bench. “I love you too.”

The sharp edges of his chewed down nails snag on the sheer silk of her dress and it reminds her that he’s with her. Counting down hours until she’s wrapped up in his cigarette-threaded blanket in the trailer.

Three and a half.

His sardonic laugh directed at his friends makes her shiver. His breath on her neck feels warm and familiar.

“I can’t wait to rip this off you, Princess,” he promises with another snag of her imported dress from Daddy.

La Bonne Nuit empties with the smell of alcohol smeared on the floor and cracking leather on the back of the Southside Serpents. The floor clears.

Jughead Jones and Veronica Lodge stand in the middle of her hard work. Eyes meeting, world stopping, rib cracking.

He brushes hair from her eyes, kisses her jaw with every single ounce of softness in him. Souls colliding.

“Where to from here?” she asks.

Jughead’s snigger echoes through her entire body. “God, you kill me, Veronica.”

The silence is so loud in her ears.

Always questions, never answers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Validate me? I'll love you as much and Jughead loves Veronica.


	3. Southside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She falls back on the bed, moving her knees from around his head but he gets up from his knees, jumps back on the bed next to her and adjusts his cock, feeling it tighten against his jeans. She rolls over, tastes Jughead's mouth and sighs in relief as she tastes herself. “You going to give me a hand, Princess?” he asks. 
> 
> She stands up, lighting a cigarette and pulling her underwear up her ankles. “This is payback, Jughead,” she laughs. “You paid the price, didn't you?”
> 
> He hates her. 
> 
> He loves her so fucking much, it hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a rewrite of a couple of chapters I've written for an old fic, so if it feels familiar, it might just be so. Also, this is love-torn-southside-Jughead just so you know.

**_ Southside _ **

* * *

 

 

There was a stash in the clubhouse so big, Jughead knows his dad won't notice. But mint and chewing gum brushes past him and he knows that she has a level of fearless that he can't match. Her legs are endless as she strolls ahead of him, “Come on, Juggie,” Veronica challenges. “I can't carry all this shit myself.”

He lets the cigarette hang between his lips, and he tries to swallow down that feeling he's getting from watching his best friend’s ex ahead of him. She convinces him that she's a rum sort of girl, but he doesn't remember her ever having rum. She tells him it's all about the vibe right now. Rum gives her that vibe that she needs.

They get a selection of things. Cheap rum and Hiram’s expensive shit. Vodka. So much vodka. A couple packets of Marlboros. He feels the weight of the cigarettes in his pocket, and he instantly feels more comfortable, especially when Veronica’s hand is in his.

“Let's go,” she tells him. “Before someone catches us.”

“Let's stay,” he says, pulling her back towards him. Her hips bump the tops of his thighs and when she ties her shirt the way she has, he can see the bottom of her flat stomach and since when did Veronica start wearing red lace? “Come on V, let's stay,” he begs her. “Let's stay here.”

Her look is serious as she flicks between Jughead's eyes and lips. But all he can concentrate on is the swelling feeling at the back of his head and his denim scratching on Veronica’s skirt, the way it's riding up almost with how close they are, but he feels they will never be close enough.

He takes a freefalling plunge with his eyes on her lips as he leans down, kissing her lips lightly first.

Fucking taking her in with his hands in the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling tighter, keeping her lips on his. He groans with the minty burn on his tongue, and she pulls her head, tightening his grip on her hair. But Jughead runs his hand down her back, and he feels the start of her skirt before finding the edge of her thigh, smooth skin on his rough fingers.

“Jug...” Veronica whimpers.

“You don't want to stay, Princess?” he asks amusedly. “Let's stay here, fuck them. You've always said you wanted to go away...”

She pushes him away and his fingers are loose in her hair, she throws her head back and groans to the ceiling. “You always do shit like this-”

“Like what?” he argues, tightening his flannel around his hips. “Kiss you?”

“No!” she snaps. “Try and get your way.”

“I'm not playing,” Jughead grumbles, trying to pull her closer to him again, she gives in, but he can tell she doesn't want to.

“Serpents never play,” she mumbles. “I know that.”

“Then why can't we just hang out at the trailer by ourselves, Princess? You me and the vodka.”

“Because I said so.”

He packs up the vodka and the expensive rum in his bag, lights a cigarette.

He wants to go home, watch TV, listen to Jellybean's incessant need to talk.

But instead he's doing whatever Veronica wants.

Because that's just the way it is.

* * *

 She moves like satin in the fucking water when he watches her. And the taste of Hiram’s expensive vodka isn't good, but it's blinding him. The lights of the trailer flicker because they're shit but they make her seem like a brighter, higher angel. She's satin in the water as she spills drink on the floor. But her hair brushes her shoulders as she dances with her head in the sky and Archie moves just as freely while Jughead stands against the wall, nursing a rum this time. Smoking cigarettes in a row.

Archie wasn't going to come to the party, but he was convinced by the promise of good music. Jughead wonders what it would be like to be like him. Easy, kind, funny, excitable. To be a puppy. Sweetpea saunters over with the patch on his back and hands Jughead a fifth drink. “You want this one?”

Jughead shakes his head and Toni gawks at Sweetpea like he has too many muscles and not enough brain. “Can't you see he already has a drink?” Toni scoffs.

Sweetpea sniggers and rolls his eyes, spilling the drink a little on the lino floor. “Calm your tits, TT,” he says. “You're a crazy drunk.”

“I'm not drunk!” she hisses. “He's such a fucking prick,” she groans at Jughead as Sweetpea moves away.

Jughead looks around the room at the many bodies, the trailer is small and trashy, but it could fit more people than Jughead had thought it would. There were people here that he didn't recognise. The music blasts his brain, so he closes his eyes against the wall. He opens his eyes when Toni pokes him in the chest, offering him a blunt. He takes it from her and eyes it, “Ronnie...” he starts but she laughs in his face.

“What?” she says, rolling her eyes. “It's not the bad stuff,” she moans. “I'm not offering you jingle-jangle, Jug.”

He takes a hit of the blunt before holding it in, letting it open his veins and slow down the booming in his ears. “Thanks,” he says, watching Veronica’s moves slow down with his bloodstream. “I needed that.”

“Mhmm,” Toni agrees, straightening her skirt around her knees. “You're watching Veronica again in that weird way, maybe pay more attention to someone else if you're wanting to look like you're not obsessed with her.”

Jughead's jaw tenses as he prepares to lie to Toni. “I-ah,” he starts. He gives up. “Yeah...”

Toni pecks him on the cheek and slaps his ass before going to walk away. “Try that girl over there with the blonde hair,” she says, pointing at a tall girl with bright red lipsticks who looks disgusted by the place. “She looks high maintenance but you're the Prince of Southside, aren't you? And you have a thing for blondes.”

He's sixteen he thinks. He's not the Prince of anything. “What's her name?” he asks.

Toni mumbles something that he doesn’t even listen to.

He thinks about going to talk to her, but then he decides against it when Veronica drinks straight from the bottle in the distance. He's caught between the distraction in the distance drinking straight from the bottle, and the girl with the longest legs, perfect hair and a sour look on her face. He chooses the girl who drinks from the bottle.

Just as he goes to make his way to Veronica, he sees Sweetpea whispering in her ear. He clears his throat and tries to rub the burning out of his eyes and an itching in the back of his throat. “I hear you're the Prince of Southside?” a voice whispers in his own ear as Sweetpea continues in Veronica’s ear, leaning against the wall with his jeans scratching on her skirt.

Jughead pulls his eyes away from Veronica and to directly in front of him, swollen red lips and eyes that are heavy and searching for something deep down in Jughead that he believes, with the right persuasion, he might be able to give her. He raises an eyebrow and takes a deep breath, inhaling so much maple scented skin that he's surprised she's not dripping the shit. “Who says that?” he asks.

“I'll be saying it if you show me,” she says smoothly.

Jughead swallows loudly, wondering just how hard that blunt would hit him if he tried more. “I'm not the Prince of Southside yet,” he murmurs as he moves closer to her ear. “But when I am, I'll show you what the Prince of Southside can give you.”

* * *

Veronica makes her way up to Jughead, but he doesn't feel light hearted like he usually does when he sees her, he feels his heart in his fucking ankles or maybe like a noose around his neck and the way the rum burns his throat makes him hate the shit a little more. She spins on her feet and her hair follows behind her, she pulls at the flannel at his hips and brings him closer to her; and as much as he wants to wear the shield that is his deadpan face because maybe then she'll leave him alone, his barrier breaks; he's weakened.

“Why the sad face, Juggie?” she asks with a dance in her step. “Cheer up, it's my party.”

He gulps down courage. “You and Sweetpea, huh?”

Veronica rolls her eyes and lets her shoulders drop, letting go of the flannel she was holding on to. “Shut up, Jones.”

Jughead isn't a jealous person, he doesn't think. But there's something unsettling about Veronica and the worst fucking bastard that Jughead knows spending time together. “Hmmm...” he answers.

Veronica slinks in behind him to lean against the corner of two walls but as Jughead's back is facing her, she hooks fingers into the back of his jeans and pulls him, making him turn to face her, he places a hand against the wall, keeping her trapped. Keeping them from the world. “You look cheery,” she laughs.

Her sarcasm makes him smile silently, “I am now that you're with me.”

She frowns. “Stop it.”

“I won't,” Jughead replies. “Are you enjoying your trashy party?” he asks Veronica. “So typically, Southside of you...”

She walks her hands up his torso, tugging the back of his hair making his head jerk back. “That's what we are, isn't it? That's what daddy always says, the bad part of Riverdale, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he repeats, taking a deep breath. The bad part of Riverdale haunts him. “The bad part... That's my home, baby.”

She frowns and pouts her lips. “You're counting down the days until you're initiated, Juggie,” she hums. “Don't you want to ask your dad if you can skip joining?”

His eyes widen in disbelief. Southside Serpents is all he's ever known, and he's never thought of asking FP for a ticket out. It's a death sentence. “Skip joining?” he almost chokes. “Veronica, we don't skip joining, this is our life.”

“The life Southside made you-”

He scrunches his eyes up and shakes his head. “V, I was born a Serpent, we don't just ignore that.”

She sighs loudly and leans back further on the wall. He can tell she's thinking of the right words but comes out with a; “We're sixteen, Jughead, and we've got this dark life all set out for us, it's not normal!”

They watch each other for a split second, he watches her chest rise and fall. “We could start our own thing, a new religion,” he tells her in her ear, kissing her jawline. “What do you say?”

“We always talk about this new life, Juggie,” she says a little too closely to his neck. “But are we ever actually going to run away?”

His hand travels down her arm, threading between her fingers. Closing his eyes and praying against her hair, feeling it on his lips. He feels like the trailer has shut down around them, the only people in the room. But he's brought back to reality when he can hear someone vomiting in the backyard, the coughing up of a lung, sweat and spit over the smell of spilt beer and they're huddled up in a corner with peeling wallpaper when he leans over Veronica, hiding her from her own party. He can smell the cigarette smoke in her hair and on her lips. “I'll do anything for you,” he tells her. _I'll fuck my life up, I'll cave in skulls, I'll rule Southside, I'll run away_ , he thinks.

She looks beneath his arm that leans against the wall in front of her and pulls her fingers out of his, he reaches up to play with a strand of hair in her eyes, looking into the deep. “You've already done so much for me, Juggie. No one cares for me the way you do...”

“Love's gonna kill me,” he mumbles in her ear, licking his lips. “I just love you.”

She sniggers while looking up into his eyes. Smirk playing on her lips that he wants to taste again. “We're sixteen,” she says slowly, pulling on his heart. “You really going to tell me you love me?”

He pauses, letting the party beat in his veins. “Are you going to stand here and tell me you don't love me?”

She keeps on smiling to the floor, rubbing her Chuck Taylors in a spilt bit of rum before sparking a cigarette between her teeth and offering it to him. “I'll love you forever,” she tells him. “And that's a promise.”

A promise, he knows, is supposed to be kept and never broken. How many silent promises had he made her in the past years in secret? He can't count them anymore, there were too many.

He keeps his eyes closed as he feels her kisses dusting his face, smoke hanging from his mouth, chest heaving. Her kiss speaks high love, black sin, slow heart, racing brain.

She's his new religion.

* * *

It's cut out takes flickering one by one.

First cut, FP Jones cackling to the sky as it rains, blowing a plume of cigarette smoke to God as he grips onto Jughead's neck, forcing him to meet his eyes. “This is the stuff that Legends are made of,” he cries to Jughead, but he laughs again. “No, I'm wrong,” he corrects. “Fucking Gods are made of the shit that's in you,” he shoves Jughead's chest, making him stumble back.

Sweetpea grins at Jughead before slipping on his gloves over huge, bear like hands. “It'll be over and done with before you know it, Juggie,” he tells him as some sort of comfort. “We all went through it once.”

Jughead gulps loudly as he looks at his boots in the mud. He lets the rain wash over him as some sort of baptism, but it doesn't work. He looks up briefly to the entrance of the clubhouse where Veronica shakes her head to him, her eyes heavy and bloodshot.

FP raises his hands in the air shouting; “Today! My son walks the Gauntlet!”

He lets the crowd cheer and they all raise their drinks to Jughead's upcoming title, because, Jughead knows, they don't call him the Prince of Southside for nothing.

Jughead waits for everyone to calm down, his dad is on high alert because this is the day FP Jones has been waiting for since Jughead was fourteen and declared a man. He sits on the hood of a beat of Camaro he's had his eye on since he was a kid and holds his head in his hands, wishing it to stop throbbing. “Juggie,” Toni whispers beside him and he can feel her leaning on his thighs, and wet drops through denim as she cries on him. “Tell me you're not going to do it.”

He hears another cheer; another voice calls out to him. “The Prince of Southside!”

He clears his throat. “Don't start this shit now, Toni.”

“You just have to make it through the Gauntlet,” she whispers. “I wish you didn't fucking have to, but you're signed up now.”

His dad pulls him off the hood, and he slides across it, leaving Toni behind.

He stands at the top of the line, people almost bowing to him. His dad and Sweetpea stand at the end, he just has to make it through to them, he's done shit like this before.

He can do it.

He just needs to breathe.

The first one is pounding flesh in his stomach and he feels his muscles tighten, sucking into his rib cage, but the second one is right on his rib cage and not only does the inside of his body make a funny sound, but Sweetpea's knuckles push back.

Several blows to his face make his teeth grit together and the sound echoes in his head but the rain is blinding him, and he's being pushed side to side, his mind hazing and blurring at the same time.

It's the way his jaw feels like it's pushed up past his temples that makes him feel like he's going to fall over but he looks out to the distance and he sees Toni in his dad's arms, kicking. “Calm the fuck down!!” she yells to a Serpent. “You don't want to fucking kill him – FP!” she cries, kicking out harder.

Jughead spits blood onto the grass, he feels warmth spreading from his eyebrow, but he meets the end with a smiling Joaquin, slipping on brass knuckles.

“I'll be quick,” Joaquin murmurs to Jughead, nodding his head. “Because I don't like hearing Toni crying for you,” he says, looking towards FP. Joaquin's smile is cocky and the way he bares all his teeth into a smug snarl makes Jughead's fist twitch.

Jughead takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and sucks in his guts again, pushing back his shoulders.

It might have been a harder hit than the rest, but it was cleaner and more precise with the brass knuckles on and he's lost feeling in his face anyways. Jughead hears Veronica’s voice higher in the air above all the noise of crashing rain and cheering gang members. “Jughead!” she yells.

He's seen this done before, and a Serpent must take the hits and walk the line, but he feels his hands shaking, his fist gripping, his knuckles turning white and the anger building in him, clawing its way through his veins, in his marrow and opening his eyes to Joaquin standing in front of his with a snarl. Jughead spits on the ground again, cracks his jaw and swings a hit, watching Joaquin's skin rippling on the bones of his fucking face. “A Serpent never shows cowardice.”

The entirety of Southside falls silent, nothing but the rain hitting leather can be heard.  
He's high in the sky, he's washed over in a dark baptism, he's wrapped in Veronica’s laugh and her taste and the way he feels when he's with her.

A blood orange sunrise, smoked highs and coloured clouds. Pinks in soft hues and soft kisses on dirty lips.

FP pulls back his son's shoulder and lifts his hand to the air while Veronica stands in front of him, proud smile, fear in her eyes and Southside Serpents jacket in her hands that she offers to him.

It fits fucking perfectly.

“You've just stepped where no one's ever stepped before, Jughead,” his father hisses. “Hitting Joaquin like that.”

He doesn't feel anything. He only feels Veronica’s hands on his skin.

* * *

  
He had been sitting out the front of the Pembrooke for twenty minutes before he got out of the Chevelle, slamming the door of the car then making his way to the apartment.

He exhales the last of his cigarette and chucks it out in Hermione Lodge’s pot plant that sits at the front and the door opens; Jughead plastering a fake smile on his face, unzipping his Serpents jacket. He knocks on the door to no answer, so he lets himself

He goes to open her bedroom door but it slams straight in his face. He tries again and it slams, _one more time_ , he thinks, but his hand is wavering and his jaw is tightening, he opens it again; it slams. He hears her on the other side, her palm on the door, he knows. He leans his head on the door, putting his ear to it to listen inside. “Baby,” he calls. “Your mom and dad have gone...” he says sweetly as if trying to sugar coat her. He wants to get in there, take her in. He's desperate and needy and his nails scratching on her door was not close enough. It would never be close enough; he feels it in his goddamn marrow.

He's fucked up, screwed it up. He hates himself a little more because she's pissed off at him and that's like whip splitting the skin on his back. “Baby,” he calls again, swallowing spit. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do this...”

Jughead hears Veronica move from the door and he almost rips it off its hinges as he rushes to get in, but he's stopped in the door frame and she raises an eyebrow as she stabs a pointed nail on his chest. “You come in here, you leave Southside outside,” she hisses, shaking the collar of his jacket.  

Jughead shrugs the jacket off his shoulders immediately, not even looking back, throwing his jacket on the floor in the doorway behind him. Jughead has noticed Veronica’s disjointed feelings towards the Serpents stronger in the last few months which he can't pinpoint because she was just as deep in the wrong side of Riverdale as he was.

Veronica spins on her bare feet, she's wearing short shorts and denim on denim, hair out, but she's even smaller without her boots on and Jughead can't help but run his dry tongue against his lip. Waiting to be so fucking sated, he'd be dripping. He finds his breaths are shallow when Veronica’s mad at him and he holds in a cocky smile. He throws his thumb behind him. “Left Southside outside,” he tells her. “You gonna give me a smile or what, baby?”

She sits on the edge of her bed with a straight face and her hair tied up this time, he likes it, he wonders what it feels like when it's twisted in his fist and she's begging for it tighter. Veronica fakes a smile. “What are you doing here?” she asks him.

He swallows down spit, looks down at his feet as his socks slide on the wood and he knows he's fucked up and he's going to pay for it. He'll pay whatever price she makes him, he'll scratch in the dirt, kill a man, he'd do anything for her to be happy with him again. “I've come for you V,” he says strongly. “I've come to say sorry...”

Veronica sniggers and Jughead hangs on to the sound, keeping it in his bloodstream. “Since when were you too good for school, Jug?” she hisses. “You realise that an education is what's going to get you out of here, right?”

That's all she was about these days, he knows. And he doesn't know if maybe they'd gone in two completely different, fucked up directions. But even if her head was in the sunny clouds of Southside, then her soul was in his fucking soul. It doesn't matter where Veronica goes, she's still in him. Even if he's going to be buried in the fucking pit. “Don't be mad, V,” he says with a little more conviction. “It's High School, I don't think they're missing me there...”

“They might not be,” she sighs, “But I am. I thought we had a plan, Juggie. We'd get out of here.”

“You want me to change?” Jughead looks to Veronica’s eyes and she doesn't back down.

 She looks at him with a seriousness that makes him want to bow down in her presence.  
She shrugs. “I just want us to be normal.”

He feels it in his heart, and in his fucked up soul. She's washing over him like a baptism and even in ten minutes, she's grounding him, levelling him. Making him feel better. At peace; he knows he never feels at peace anymore. “I'll do whatever you want me to do, Princess,” he says with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I'll come to school with you, I'll do whatever. Tell me what you want me to do...”

She bites her lip before leaning back on the bed, her palms flat on the sheets. She slowly moves her knees apart and Jughead chokes on his own saliva. He pulls his hands out of pockets and rubs his hands together. “On your knees,” Veronica says, moving her eyes from his to the floor.

Jughead falls to his knees, denim tightening as he hits the floor, he's a man praying as he looks to the ceiling but he crawls to the edge of the bed, placing his hands on Veronica’s ankles. “How long do we have?” he asks, dotting kisses on her ankles, closing his eyes as he inhales her smell.

“As long as I fucking like,” she laughs, watching him kiss her legs with her lip in between her teeth.

“What about school?”

“Fuck school.”

Jughead doesn't need to be told twice.

He sucks in her flesh, tanned thighs that are smoother than smooth and smoother than the weed he gets from the good guy in the Ghoulies, smoother than the whiskey that his dad says is expensive; smoother than his fingers when they slide in, getting wet. He stays on his knees as he stretches taller, licking the bare skin between her navel and hip bones, clinging onto the flesh that sits at her hips and she gasps when he pulls her closer to his mouth. Red, angry marks are left on the inside of her thighs and she groans as he licks, and higher, edging to the start of her denim shorts. Veronica thrusts her hips towards Jughead's face, making him smug but she groans in frustration as he rubs harder and harder on the middle of her shorts. “Take them off,” he tells her.

She unbuttons them quickly before Jughead drags them down her calves. Her knees tremble as he keeps kissing, her hands shake and her elbows give way when he drags lace down her legs too, breathing on her smooth pussy, he kisses everywhere but on her very core, the junction between her core and her thighs, he laps and licks, tasting her. There's starvation in the back of his throat as he groans against her, brushing long fingers between her folds.

He breathes against her but as he goes to move his hand down his jeans, unbuckling his belt she separates her knees further, keeping his own hand from the hardening patch in his jeans and she clicks her teeth, looking down at him on the ground in between her legs with his mouth hungry on her skin, “No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not yet.”

Jughead moans and it just makes him more starved, he knows he could do whatever he wants. Flip her over on the bed and lock her hands under his while slipping in, dripping in wet. Fuck her from behind until she's calling out his name like a fucking saint. He could move her knees so wide he could slip several fingers in and he wouldn't be able to get the full length in.

He could kiss her tenderly, on her breasts, taste her neck. Whisper how much he loves her until they're riding that high together as they look each other in the eye.

Instead he keeps his breath on her soft pussy, he looks up to Veronica at the exact same moment her eyes roll back into her brain and he uses his middle finger and index finger of his weak, left hand to separate her, slowly drawing his tongue up from bottom to top.  
Veronica almost falls back, her elbows shaking and he puts his right hand on her stomach, feeling it suck in as he steadies her. He's smug against her as he keeps licking, tasting, he holds in his own desperate shaky sigh. “Do you like that?” he asks her.

She swallows loudly. “Is that all you got?” she challenges.

He feels a fire in him, building in his chest and getting caught in his trachea when he feels her dominance on him. He slams the two fingers that were keeping her open for him inside, gyrating against them, feeling her wetness on his fingers after nine days of nothing. He's slow and teasing at first, he's fast and fucking her with his fingers before too long, letting her shake and moan down the room like white noise.

He appreciates every inch of her as she rides his scarred fingers, on one hand, the red and pain is still inflamed and sore as she hits his hand on a certain spot but she keeps him wanting more and his mouth can't shut when he wants all of her on it. Teeth chattering for flesh. He pulls out his fingers slowly... He forces them in so hard, his fist slaps against her ass.

She calls, “Jug,” she says with teeth clenched. “I'm going to come.”

He pumps harder, grips on to her thigh with his other hand and flicks her clit so many times, he's closed his eyes for concentration. The shake radiating through her makes him snicker with his tongue on Veronica and he feels her tightening around his fingers, riding the high he's given her.

She falls back on the bed, moving her knees from around his head but he gets up from his knees, jumps back on the bed next to her and adjusts his cock, feeling it tighten against his jeans.  She rolls over, tastes Jughead's mouth and sighs in relief as she tastes herself. “You going to give me a hand, Princess?” he asks.

She stands up, lighting a cigarette and pulling her underwear up her ankles. “This is payback, Jughead,” she laughs. “You paid the price, didn't you?”

He hates her.

He loves her so fucking much, it hurts.

* * *

His veins grow bigger and the blood flow is slower. They both smile to he sky with slow laughs and soft movements on the sofa at the trailer.

Souhtside was hanging on a chair in the corner but Veronica still has her Pop’s uniform on from earlier in the day and Jughead can't help but think what she might look like if she was slammed against the wall with him between her thighs and panties around her ankles and her skirt around her hips. She passes him the blunt and he sucks it in, holding his breath and letting his lungs ease before letting it out, washing his mind, keeping her in his fucking space.

They were two souls wrapped in dark sin right now as they spoke in gentle whispers and soft hushes, “Are you scared?” she asks.

“Of what?”

“Of turning so Southside, you can't come back?”

He quickly kisses Veronica’s cheek but she moves in, tasting his mouth, soaking in his love because God knows he's nothing but love for her. He tilts his head back on the sofa closing his eyes and letting Veronica take him. “I'll always be able to come back from this...” he lies.

He doesn't know if he can, all he knows is that he has that Serpent on his arm and a Serpent in his heart that he doesn't want to be there. Veronica knows he's lying, he can tell by the way she watches his every, weed relaxed move. “The beatings, Jug,” she hushes at him.

“And the drugs and Jingle-Jangle dealings in dirty bars, that's where you're heading.”

“Tell me you love me, V,” he prays. “Tell me you still love me and this isn't pulling us apart into fucked up, tiny pieces.”

She takes a puff of the blunt and closes her eyes. “I love you, Jughead,” she tells him with an honesty he can't deny. “But I want there to still be some good in you.”

He thinks about the good in him and he skips the part when he tells her he's leading a fucked up initiation soon where he's been buffing up brass knuckles and he already has a crack in this incisor from a Ghoulie he met three weeks ago.

He lets Veronica’s cool and calm demeanour baptise him while he's in the trailer for the entire night.

Jughead looks down at the initials carved into his drawer, tracing the patterns of “JJ +  VL” wondering if he should carve out the _VL’s_ and replace them with two S's. Because Jughead knows, he's been taught, Southside Serpents will never leave him like Veronica might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love you all. That's all.


	4. Save our Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's like his hands fit perfectly in the dips of her hips. His thumbs grate along the band of her jeans and when she's on her tip toes, she's kind of the perfect height. He doesn't hesitate when he gets to the buttons of her jeans and he rips them open in one movement, his cocky smirk lays roughly on her mouth. He puts his index fingers inside her jeans, hooking them onto the lace of her panties and he kisses down her jaw, along her shoulder and back, leaving his tongue sitting on the thin skin of her neck. She smiles sweetly, sucks in air through her teeth and rubs her hand up and down the bulge in Jughead's on jeans making him moan. The light conversation about Veronica's parents they had over coffee exits the room. Jughead can feel that the only thing left is the fact that she had decided that being together was too hard and this was supposed to end months ago but it didn’t. And that fact is heavy and thick on them right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMUT! Not the best, not the worst. It is what it is.  
> Oh, and heart torn pain.

_**Save our Souls.** _

* * *

 

It’s the tightening of his jaw and the dry, jagged feeling of his teeth grinding together that bring him back down from the cloud-of-smoke haze he had been living in. His eyes that had been weighing so heavy seem to shoot open and he can almost feel his pupils dilating; as if clicking into place. As if he could hear the changes. He reminds himself that he’s acutely aware of everything these days, noises are more static, lights are more glaring. Everything is just a little more now that she’s not here.  

He lays flat on his back, watching dust form in sun streaks through the curtains. Jughead rubs his eyes that seem to have no feeling and he is certain his soul has no feeling as he thinks in short, sharp memories. Sugary blonde. Vanilla kisses.

Soft touches, smiles on lips.

 _Betty_.

He punches the bed, he screws his fists, it drives itself into the bed without any reaction. It’s better this way. Often, his walls can’t take it.

He groans out loud and mentally swears at the stained ceiling.

“I hate you,” he whispers to the void.

“ _I tried to love you_ ,” he says in his mind.

Jughead picks up his phone and looks at it with one eye shut, the light from the screen tearing his other retina apart. Two messages from Sweetpea, some shit about getting his ass back to the Whyte Wyrm before he kills him. Another from Toni, something about missing Jughead and needing to get burgers. None from Betty.

 _None from Betty._  

Jughead laughs humorlessly, wondering what the hell would make him think Betty would message him anyway.

“Seven months,” he says as he throws the thin blanket off his body, the same one that he hasn’t even bothered to put a cover on, placing bare feet on the cold floor.

Seven months, he counts as he walks out of the bedroom. Seven months since his heart turned into cold, grey concrete and his fist drove itself into the wall four times, his knuckles cracked in three different places, his mind split into pieces of which most of it drove away to California and the sun. He did everything in that moment that she hated. Everything he hated in himself came out the moment she left. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe he’s supposed to be better this way, use this time as a coping mechanism but he knows in himself, he’s not coping with anything.

Seven months since he had heard her voice, but he sniggers again.

It may have been seven months, but her voice in his mind is still as clear as it had been seven months ago.

He thinks of the specifics, he likes to remember the exact moment in which his life fell apart.

 _“I just can’t do this anymore,”_ she had said as she left him standing on the steps of the trailer.

Jughead smiles to himself as he searches for his menthols. “Yeah,” he agrees out loud. “I can’t either.”

Sometimes the coffee isn’t strong enough when he feels this way.

He was supposed to feel more when she left. Instead, he dripped with secrets. After all, his life was a lie anyway. 

* * *

Sweetpea slams his fist on the table in front of Jughead and Jughead hides a flinch. Sweetpea was always loud, bold movements and scare tactics that makes Jughead roll his eyes and turn away from the sole person he could probably trust these days. It makes him feel somewhat sick and a whole lot of pathetic. Jughead shoves thoughts of his oldest friend to the back of his mind, he makes a mental note that he should probably call Archie, but what would he have to say when Archie was making a name for himself and all Jughead has is the tainted name of Southside on his shoulders.

“I don’t want to get all deep on you -” Sweetpea starts.

“Then don’t.”

Sweetpea groans and throws a punch at Jughead’s shoulder. “I’m not supposed to be running this shit, it’s supposed to be you ,” Sweetpea says seriously. “Or I’ll have to get Toni on your ass and you know how that goes…”

“Ah,” Jughead says with a wink. “Castration seems to be her flavour of choice these days…”

Sweetpea shudders. “My balls will never be the same.”

Jughead sips at a cherry cola; Cheryl’s Special. “I’m good,” he shrugs but the look on Sweetpea’s face tells him loud and clear that his lies aren’t well received. “Honestly.”

“Well,” Sweetpea replies, stealing Jughead’s same cherry cola. “Honesty is the best policy and all of that dumb shit.”

“I thought we weren’t getting deep…”

Sweetpea grins, showing all of his teeth. “Need my main man back -”

“Not sure how Fangs is going to feel knowing you just shoved him to bottom of the pecking order.”

“You got your snark back, I like that,” Sweetpea chuckles. “So, you’re going to stop being all emo and come back to us?”

Jughead thinks it over, he looks at the smoky room, the smell of spilt beer and joints so ingrained in the walls,he wonders just how many secrets would spill if these walls could talk. “Maybe,” he shrugs.

Sweetpea carries on, words pouring out onto the table in front of them, hands flying, some shit fight story about how much Cheryl pisses him off and how Toni almost beat him into a pulp. At some point, Cheryl catches Jughead’s eye and bites her matching cherry red lip that sends a jolt through Jughead’s spine and pools saliva on his tongue.

 _Ain’t nothing better than regrets and the opportunity to forget_ , he thinks. He can smell her skin on him already...

Sweetpea stops and the pause in his non-stop verbal offload catches Jughead’s attention; clicking heels seem like booming clunks when the noise is so familiar to Jughead. “Juggie!” says Veronica. “Come back to the pit to play, huh?”

Veronica’s lips are dark and moving in slow motion as Jughead reaches for his menthols. He gives her a curt nod and a lopsided attempt at a smile as he flicks the lighter and watches the burning red at the tip of his cigarette, he inhales deeply while he watches mauve nails dance up Sweetpea’s arm. “Ronnie.”

She gives him a smile that has him spiralling. _Familiar_ , he thinks. The feeling of familiar gets stuck in his throat. He can taste the familiar on his tongue, and the softness of it’s skin. The filthy, rotting secrets that he and familiar shared on the floor on his trailer or how she called his name as she rode him. Familiar whispered so many promises in his ear over the years and when Betty left, he couldn’t help but think it was because what was familiar to him, well, familiar stole his entire heart and he faked the rest to the blonde haired girl. 

Veronica’s eyes are blank, but Jughead’s feel deep and heavy with hands that wanted to reach out to what feels familiar...

Sweetpea continues on his long winded spiels but Jughead watches Veronica tap rhythmically on the table in front of them. It was something that she had done since they were fifteen yet twenty one proves that mostly, they are still the same.

 _Well_ , he thinks, _some of us ._

Some people change, some don’t. Some people are all for personal growth and some people can’t even see the beginning of change.

“Don’t you keep being a stranger,” Sweetpea orders. “We miss you around here and we need you too.”

Jughead’s automatic answers seem to convince Sweetpea and so he lets Jughead go.

Cheryl locks eyes with Jughead and he can taste the venom pooling in the back of his throat already.

He walks outside, swinging the keys to his bike around his finger but hears the door of the Whyte Wyrm slam behind him. “Hey, you!” Veronica calls out.

Jughead groans loudly and turns to look at her. “Princess,” he drawls.

Her scowl makes him smile but she runs up to him anyway. “You’re quiet today,” she says, looking up at him and asking a million questions with her stare. “But you came out of your snake pit, nice to know.”

“You’re full of these snake puns? Learning a lot with Sweetpea, huh?”

She doesn’t like it, she slaps a hand on Jughead’s chest and gives him a shove that doesn’t move him. “I miss you,” she murmurs.

Jughead feels a lump in his throat. How was he supposed to explain to Veronica that she reminds him too much of his best friend who’s not around for him anymore or Betty who left without a second thought. Or the fact that before she decided to dedicate her life to Sweetpea.  Jughead had unloaded his entire life onto her one night and then fucked her on the floor of the trailer and though she’s brushed it off as nothing but some sort of weird way of comforting each other, to him, it was a whole lot more than that. 

He misses her too. He misses the stolen glances at sixteen, the skin tearing kisses at seventeen, the countless promises that they’d be together at eighteen. The arguments that they were too far gone to be together at nineteen. The constant _‘I-love-you’s’_ scattered through the years in dark corners. “Yeah,” he snickers. “Like a bullet to the brain.”

“Give yourself a little more credit, Jug,” she says with a wink. “Don’t be a stranger, Sweetpea was right… or at least, don’t be a stranger to me.”

He stares at her with a desperation. She was so close, he could feel the heat of her skin and the sound ringing in his ears, he was sure was the beating of her heart. He believes she’s reading him too because her eyes darken as she bites her lip. “Do you feel it too?”

Veronica doesn’t answer, but he knows she doesn’t have to. He doesn’t wait. Jughead pats her on the back and starts up the bike. The one person he wants to be a stranger to right now would be her. But she’s the one thing he has left from before he felt like this.

_Lost._

* * *

 

The thing that Jughead loves about Cheryl is that she’s smooth and also, she doesn’t want anything from him.

She tastes like cherry cola and her lipstick is sweeter than anything he’s tasted before. When her lips dance on his skin, he feels invincible. “Are you going to keep staring at me? Or are you going to do something about this?” she asks, rubbing her hand on his hardened crotch.

He knows she likes the way his hand sounds against her ass, so he slaps it, over and over and jiggles it a bit, making her smile against his collarbone, that in itself makes him grip harder and need her a little more than before.

He makes a noise that makes his cheeks flush and it makes her snigger with a look in her eye that proves that she’s just as desperate as he is. He has no shame about it; Cheryl has an ass that makes him want to leave marks on it.

She undoes his belt buckle quickly and her lips fall open a little that gives off the air of hunger. She pulls down his jeans while he’s still standing and runs her teeth over his dick with his boxers still on. He bucks a against her mouth without intention.

Jughead loves the fact that Cheryl wears a shit load of lace. The red lace that runs between her thighs and the bralette that frames her tits so well looks good when Cheryl is on her knees. But Jughead now has a hunger of his own and memories that need drowning so he pulls down his boxers himself with an urgency that makes Cheryl grin against Jughead’s thigh. He pulls himself out. Cheryl takes him all in.

The thing with Cheryl is that she doesn’t like kissing. Jughead’s mouth is all over her body but she turns away from most kisses that makes him both frustrated and slam into her harder. His mouth is all over her shoulders as he slips into her from the back and her long, red hair looks so good wrapped around his fist….

He holds onto both sides of her ass as he cums, shaking, nails digging into her and his head thrown back so hard, he’s almost blinded and just about lost every trace of his bad thoughts in her. She keeps grinding back on him to the point where he has to push away from her. “Thank you,” she murmurs as she lays with lace around her ankles and a ripped bra on that she starts ripping all the way off. He watches her fingers as they dance across her chest and it’s enough to make him want to go again, but at the same time, he likes laying in almost-forgotten bliss and ignorance with Cheryl Blossom in his arms and the poisonous, strawberry scent of her hair burning in his nose.

“How long can I stay for?” he asks.

Cheryl’s look of shock amuses him. “How long are you planning on staying?” she asks. “I don’t want people knowing you’re here.”

“I don’t want people to know I’m here, don’t worry,” he chuckles.

She flutters fingers along his abdomen. “Then what the hell are you asking me, Jones?”

He sighs. If only he could tell her that he just doesn’t want to go home. “Nothing,” he says, ghosting his own fingers on her skin.

Maybe he’d hit up Toni. Maybe it’s a movie and burgers kind of night instead. He feels proud of himself, he’s managed to shove memories to the back. Even if only for one day.

Cheryl’s body feels so good when he’s trying to forget. The worst part was that it was so obvious in the way that Cheryl plays with his hair and runs her lips on his chest that she was trying to forget something too… Jughead was used to the feeling, but he wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. So he pulls her closer, runs his fingers in the band of her panties and lets her talk with cherry cola in her mouth. He appreciates her more than he’d ever be able to tell her.  _"I miss you,_ " from Veronica echoes through his head as Cheryl distracts him. He misses himself. He misses Veronica. _"I miss you,"_ she repeats in his mind. They both just miss what could have been and what isn't anymore. 

* * *

 

Veronica stands in front of him as he lays on the bed. “Get up,” orders. “Sweetpea wants you… god you make me sick, when was the last time you slept in a made bed?” she asks, pulling at the blanket. “The last time I came and made it for you? 

Jughead ignores the order. Veronica Lodge standing in his filthy trailer in Louboutins wasn’t something that happened often anymore but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted. The shoes alone would probably cost more than everything in the trailer, of that, he was sure.

Jughead’s mind was a smoke induced high, wispy and scattered. But she was very much real, in his zone, in his space and it made him feel level for the first time in a long time. Her eyes flick from Jughead in his boxers to the ashtray on the bedside table that she was obviously disgusted by and that gave him some satisfaction. “I’ll be there when I’m ready,” he tells her.

Veronica scoffs and reaches down to the bed, grabbing at his ankle and tugging. “I’ve been sent as an order and now, I am ordering you to get your lazy ass out of bed and come with me.”

Jughead rubs his eyes and tries to wish her out of the trailer but he rolls over anyway and gets out of the bed, stretching out his limbs, still wishing her away, “Tell Sweetpea I’m busy.”

“As if he’d believe that,” she starts. “I want you to come too.”

“Why?”

“I miss your company,” Veronica shrugs.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “You miss it in theory, but only when associated with Archie.”

“We’ve had good times without Archie,” she says slowly.

Jughead can’t think about that. Or the way she made him feel. _This is what happens when I’m weak,_ he thinks. _When I have no self control._  

Jughead tries to keep the voice at the back of his head that reminds him that his lack of self control towards Veronica has been haunting him since he was sixteen. 

He walks past Veronica who just continues to click after him as he goes into the kitchen, flicking on the jug for a strong coffee. “Coffee?” he asks.

“Fuck the formalities, Jughead…” she replies sighing. “You can’t just keep living in this trailer, for starters, it’s messy -”

“An organised mess -”

“Don’t lie,” she says in a breath. “And it’s not good for you…” she says a little more quietly.

Jughead’s jaw tenses and can barely manage a swallow. He closes his eyes for only a split second before saying; “What’s not good for me?”

“Trust me,” Veronica says, trying to meet his eyes but he avoids them only after noticing the serious look in them. “At some point, everyone must move on.”

He turns on the balls of his feet and leans back on the kitchen counter. The jug had stopped boiling already and the steam rises and gives Jughead something to concentrate on. “I’m trying.”

“Betty left you, Jughead,” Veronica says with a face that shows nothing. Nothing. Nothing but the deep purple on her lips is apparent. Jughead wonders where her soul is; it isn’t there, not in the way she spits out Betty’s name as though it’s nothing, or lays the truth out in front of them both. _She left me,_ he thinks. _She’s not coming back._ But he knows that deep down in the pit of it, Betty left because of his secrets and that secret stands before him now. But Veronica never came back either.

He stands in front of Veronica. Bare chested, exposed, and a hell of a lot of vulnerable. He hates it. He wonders if he hates Veronica. But he knows he doesn’t, she laid out the truth. The same one she was so obviously capable of accepting. “You don’t know how it feels, Princess,” he spits, “To lose things. Veronica Lodge always gets what she wants, right?” he tries to dull down the malice in his words.

He wants to hurt her for hurting him.

Veronica rolls her eyes and shrugs off her jacket, the one she was so lovingly offered by Sweetpea. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose things?”

Jughead can feel the heat building in his cheeks, and the all too familiar twitch in his fists. “I-”

“Don’t you want to know how I felt when Archie left me? Or do you think you’re the only person on earth who’s loved someone just to have them walk out? Because if you do, sweetie, you have another thing coming.”

“Veronica -”

“No!” she snaps, cutting him off. He jerks back a step with her words. “Feels like your world is falling down around you, right?” she says, walking closer to Jughead. He can smell shifting jasmine and leather approaching him, the way her eyes widen make her seem a whole lot more fiery and less of her sweet-kind-of-coy that she wears often. “High School Sweethearts seems pathetic, doesn’t it? When you’re sixteen and can’t see past the bad end of twenty. How can someone who promised you love just leave, right?”

Jughead feels his words sitting on the back of his tongue. He hates that she has a point, but how can he hate her when she’s put it into words. She took them out of his mouth, she’s thrown them right back at him. “Right,” he announces.

“Right?” she says with a laugh that hurts him in every way possible. “I’m always right.”

Jughead puts on an amused smile and tries to get rid of the stinging in his eyes. But he sees past his own building tears to the ones that are in Veronica’s eyes, bursting, streaming and smudging perfectly placed mascara. “Veronica,” he says, weakly lifting his right arm that doesn’t seem to want to move. “Are you okay?” he asks.

She sniffs loudly as Jughead places a hand on her shoulder. “I always have to be okay, Jughead. But he left and you left me too, you know? And how the hell could you have done that to me?”

“What about Sweetpea?” Jughead says, searching for words, scrambling at anything that he could say to stop this. But Veronica leans into his touch and places her forehead on his chest. “I didn’t leave, it just wasn’t right.”

His mind flickers as he finally speaks his mind. Betty and Archie were gone, but they still couldn’t be together. Riverdale made sure to let the guilt and deceit creep into their love. 

 

He awkwardly places his chin on Veronica’s head, holding her close. This felt a lot safer than he initially thought it would. It was like he was holding onto something that was slightly more home than he was used to. The smell was not as strong as he thought it would be, it didn’t sting his nostrils and make him move away like Cheryl did. She felt like that familiarity that he had been longing for. Maybe it was some weird connection to Archie, he missed his best friend. Maybe it was the memory of Veronica and Betty sharing shakes and laughing in the middle of summer that drew him closer. He pulls on Veronica’s jacket, bringing her in close and he can feel the warmth of her breath on his chest as she sobs. He lets her shudder. Lets her tears seep on to his chest, run down him. He holds on. He needs this too.

He needs to feel something again.

Veronica’s nails drag on his skin a little as she cries. Jughead knows that she hasn’t been able to do this, let loose, cry; get it out. Be herself. He knows it in his heart, in his soul, in the back of his mind. He knows because he hasn’t been able to either. “Sometimes it’s just so fucked up how Archie just left… I tried to be with someone who was good for me but I just couldn’t... I did that to him, you know?” she whispers. “Archie wasn’t supposed to be like that, you know that, Jug. You know him better than anyone.”

Jughead closes his eyes as he lets Veronica’s words linger in the air a little longer. “Maybe you and I are just a little too dark, Princess,” Jughead adds. “We’re the kind that are a little too hard to love…”

She laughs against him and he laughs back, pushing her away a little to look at her. He lifts his hands and rubs black from her bottom eyelids. He feels it; the way she’s exposed, the way her cheeks instantly harden as he touched her face. She doesn’t spill tears. He can tell. Because he face is hard and her back is straight again. “We’re fucked up, is that what you’re trying to say?” she says with a small smile.

Jughead frowns, standing in front of her. “Kind of,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to act in front of me though,” he tells her seriously. “We’ve known each other almost ten years, Ronnie. If you want to cry, cry.”

She shakes her head, is barely noticeable, but it’s there. “How is the man who’s going through a mental break down telling me I’m allowed to cry?”

“Well, we all have souls and that, right?”

Veronica’s face falters. “Souls? I don’t think so,” she mutters. “If we were just a little bit more good, if we were just a little less broken, if we were a little easier to love, they wouldn’t have left us.”

Jughead mulls over her words, so many points, so much hurt. She’s small in front of him when she speaks in such volumes that her words grind on his skin. “But the good like to fix things, isn’t that their biggest quality?”

Veronica smiles gently before placing a hand on his chest, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “You need a soul to fix. No use if we have no soul…”

“Do you ever think maybe, if we didn’t…” he stumbles on words. “If we didn’t…”

“Fall in love?”

The static in the room shifts as his throat chokes a little and his fingers flinch. Every barrier and cross roads that they stand at was because of the love they never speak of. “Betty knew, Archie could tell. Why did it never work? Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if we just… if we went for it.”

Veronica turns to walk away. “We’re too much the same. We both needed someone different.”

Jughead stands in the kitchen as Veronica opens the trailer door and steps out. “Hey!” he calls out before thinking, cursing himself internally. “Maybe we just need someone to save our souls…”

Veronica throws a hand in the air as she starts down the steps. “We’ll get there, Jughead.”

Jughead watches her as she walks along the dirt, lingering jasmine still in the air. “Wait for me! 

She stops, confusion etched on her face. “For what?”

“I’m coming!” he reaches for a pair of jeans and flannel on the kitchen table before throwing Southside on his shoulders. His thoughts were racing, but if he has to cling on tightly to the one person he might have left, he was going to do it.

Veronica throws her car keys in the air before catching them. “You’re coming? What happened to brooding in your damp trailer?” she teases.

Jughead lightly shoves her shoulder before putting a joint between his lips. “Save our souls…” he shrugs. “Maybe you’ve talked a bit of healing into me, Princess,” he says with a wink.

“Well then, Prince of Southside, what shall we do?” she asks. “Where should we go?”

He jumps in the passengers side of Veronica’s car. “Anywhere,” he says quickly. “Anywhere with you.”

He said they had known each other almost ten years. He knows this isn’t true. Jughead’s soul had known Veronica’s over lifetimes. 

* * *

Jughead grinds a cigarette butt into the ashtray at the exact same time as Toni does. He grinds his teeth, she rolls her eyes. "Stop staring," she whispers to him nowhere near his ear. "You're making it obvious."

Jughead nudges his best friend's shoulder and grits his teeth, Toni's obvious and obnoxious satisfaction in Jughead's discomfort fuelling her, he knows Toni too well. "I'm not staring," he says slowly, groaning at his own child-like attitude. "I just know she doesn't..." he trails off.

"Doesn't what?" Toni asks, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't like the Whyte Wyrm?" she teases, "Because it sure looks like she's having a good time... she looks hot in black, don't you agree?"

Jughead's jaw tenses as he watches Veronica place a hand on Sweetpea's and the way she throws her head back when Fangs speaks while leaning on a pool cue. Jughead swigs back his cheap bourbon and grimaces as he hands it back to Toni. She smiles at him and drinks the last of his drink. "I haven't noticed," he grumbles back to his best friend.

Toni chuckles and tip toes to try and ruffle Jughead's hair. "If you haven't noticed then why do you keep staring at her?"

He leans on the counter, putting his head in his hands and closes his eyes. "Because she's Veronica Lodge," he replies. "It's a cardinal sin to not pay attention to her, you know that."

"Keep torturing yourself," Toni says with a shrug of her shoulders. "You seem to be good at it."

Jughead groans into his hands as he listens to Veronica's laugh rise above the music. _Yeah_ , he thinks. _I'm fucking amazing at it._

* * *

 

He's laying in bed when she calls him. He wants to throw his phone at the door and she'd be able to hear it hit wood on the other end. But his blood is pulsing and his veins are contracting and his hand is glued to the phone he wants to launch across the room. He answers it.

"Why did you leave?" she asks a little breathlessly. The only thing keeping the anger from his pulse is the cocky feeling he gets from Veronica's annoyance in him. "You didn't tell me you were going."

Jughead smirks in the dark and the light from his phone is bright, his eyes are screwed shut. "Didn't realise you'd be so upset -"

"-I'm not upset -"

"You sound it."

She sighs with frustration and it makes the phone crackle. "I wanted to see you."

Jughead pinpoints frustration in her tone and it makes his chest tighten. "And I you, but we can’t keep doing this, can we?" he asks her, drawing out his words. Listening for any sign from her end of the phone.

He can hear the bed creak, her breath stop. The soft sounds of her lips moving and he knows they're wet, full. Fucking perfect. "I know..." she murmurs.

He sniggers. "You want to kill me, Princess?" he repeats. 

He shifts on his bed, his breathing becoming heavier just from the sheer fact that she was on the other end. And he would be lying if he didn't get some sort of satisfaction out of knowing that she was just as fucked up and kind of desperate as he is. "Badly," she whispers, "I'm wearing lace, you like lace..." she says and he can almost hear the lace ripping and her nails snagging while she parts it.

Jughead can't take a proper breath, his chest is heaving and it's caving in. He wonders just how far she'd go to be the one to make his veins contract again. He can almost taste her on his tongue as he imagines her legs spreading... "I want you here with me," he begs her. "Fuck, I want you here with me..."

His free fist clenches as he buries his head back into the pillow, he can feel that frustration perfectly in the right hand side of his jaw where it's throbbing and making his temples feel like they're going to fucking burst. "I want you here, too, Jug," Veronica murmurs in his ear. "I want you in me," she drips. "I'm running my hand down my body..."

Jughead's airways catch and his trachea closes in. His jaw is about to shatter as he starts to palm himself over his boxershorts. "Don't torture me, V," he says softly. "Please don't..."

He hears her chuckle lightly on the other side, making his annoyance grow because how the fuck can she be light hearted laughs when the roof was falling in on him? She whimpers and he can feel her licking her lips. "I'm wet for you," she tells him.

His teeth make an ugly sound through the phone. "When can I see you?" he asks her, wanting an exact day, time and location. Not wanting to wait anymore. "So I don't have to just listen to that pretty mouth over the phone."

Her breathing is cut off and there's a rustle in the background. "I'll let you know," she says clearly.

He can hear Sweetpea's steps loud and clear, even from all the way over there.

* * *

He comes strongly. His hand balances him against the shower door. He feels cheap. He feels mad. He came over Cheryl's ass as he was gripping onto one side of it with his left had, digging his nails into her flesh. He smacked the right side red as water ran down her. She doesn't like kissing, which is just as well, because when he got too close to Cheryl, sometimes he could see something in her that he didn't want to. She leaves him in the shower somewhere between her spit, the smell of roses and that sick feeling he has in his guts.

Jughead lets the water cleanse him, it runs over and stings his eyes. He gets out, but the cool air on his skin hurts more than the hot water or the way Cheryl's nails dug into his shoulder tips.

The text message from Veronica says; " _baby, I miss you."_

His jeans feel weird on his wet body, his shirt clings to his torso. He hates the feeling he gets when he's not with Veronica. _But that's what we signed up for, isn't it?_ He thinks, _when she decided that a life with Sweetpea would be a better one than with me._ Suddenly the guilt of Cheryl's swollen lips around him didn't make him feel as fucking bad.

* * *

Jughead and Toni are laying in her bed, watching shitty movies and eating crappy food. She shoves a burger in his face and he takes a bite. "At least you're eating," she sings. Her voice is too bright, too light and it makes him shudder.

"Why do you say that?" he asks.

Toni sighs. "You've not been yourself."

He knows this, but he doesn't know what to say. He shrugs it off, grabbing fries from in between them. "I've been good," he tells her. "Don't worry about it."

Jughead can tell that Toni's not convinced. But he knows her well enough to know that she won't press it. So they keep eating in ignorant bliss and Jughead's almost scratching at his fucking skin. Three more days. That's all he has to wait out. Three days until he can see her. Three days until he can taste her.

Three days until he'll be buried so deep in Veronica, he won't know where she starts and he ends.

Three days until he can remind himself exactly what he's missing out on. He'll torture himself because he's fucking amazing at it.

* * *

 

There wasn't much to say when Veronica arrived. Jughead hates that nowadays, everything is a little strained and awkward. And he hates the fact that every single little look that Veronica gives him, he tries to find a second meaning behind them. Sometimes he thinks he can see sorrow, but then he deciphers it to simply mean that maybe she pities him. She left him after all. He forces himself to never forget that.

It's like his hands fit perfectly in the dips of her hips. His thumbs grate along the band of her jeans and when she's on her tip toes, she's kind of the perfect height. He doesn't hesitate when he gets to the buttons of her jeans and he rips them open in one movement, his cocky smirk lays roughly on her mouth. He puts his index fingers inside her jeans, hooking them onto the lace of her panties and he kisses down her jaw, along her shoulder and back, leaving his tongue sitting on the thin skin of her neck. She smiles sweetly, sucks in air through her teeth and rubs her hand up and down the bulge in Jughead's on jeans making him moan. The light conversation about Veronica's parents they had over coffee exits the room. Jughead can feel that the only thing left is the fact that she had decided that being together was too hard and this was supposed to end months ago but it didn’t. And that fact is heavy and thick on them right now.

Jughead has little-to-no self preservation at this stage, when he should leave her, he finds it hard when his fingers are dancing on the gap of skin under her crop, brushing his thumb back and forth on her skin, so she closes her eyes and he kisses the lids shut. But his teeth are starving and he bites down on her neck.

"Hey!" Veronica says, whacking Jughead's chest, pushing him away but it's almost dirty lies, her weak battle. Because she turns around, unbuttons her jeans and pushes her ass into Jughead.

His whole hands journey up Veronica's back, under her crop, skin on the edges of his cuticles snagging on the lace of her bra. He moans out loud as he unsnaps her bra, lifts it over her head, "Fuck, Princess," he murmurs in her ear, words dripping black on her neck. "Do you know what you do to me?"

Jughead closes his eyes against the back of her neck as he takes both of her hands in his, slamming them against the dirty wall that has Southside painted on it but Jughead ignores it as his cock strains against his denim and he can't take a life saving breath anyways. He slams his hips into her bare ass, he kisses his way past the dip in the small of Veronica's back, slips his tongue into her soft folds as he gets further, each crook of Veronica's knees and ankles before lifting her feet, taking off her jeans and panties and feeling completely fucking starved.

She tries to turn around again but he grabs her neck, pushes her flush against the wall and kicks her feet gently, keeping her wide, watching her back move as she breathes against the wall. "I missed you," she hisses with a passion that he can only match.

"Keep open, baby," he commands, his fingers run down her back again, he hears Veronica suck in sharp air through her teeth as his fingers slip in from behind, slapping his palm against her ass. Her eyes screw shut, her mouth falls open but he steadies her with his left hand on her shoulder, pushing her against the wall again. "Do you like that?"

Veronica groans and pushes her ass back onto his hand, making her pussy pull his hands deeper. "Fuck."

Jughead slams her again, his fingers digging into Veronica's collarbone. "I want an answer, baby."

"Yes!" she whimpers, rolling her body onto his hand, "Harder, Jughead, fuck..."

Saliva pools on Jughead's tongue, venom builds in his jaw. His hand feels like it's building cramp when he watches Veronica ride his hand, fingers dripping and her nails scratching old paint off the mantle of the window of the trailer. She bounces harder on his hand but he groans out loud, discomfort in his denim and he lets her go, shrugging the snake off his back and unbuckling his jeans. They all drop to the floor behind him and Veronica pushes back on him, dripping, desperate and weak.

He grabs back onto her shoulder and Veronica looks back at Jughead who strokes himself with his right hand and keeps her against the wall with his left. His brain rings loudly as throws his head back, watching Veronica's hair lay on her back. He licks his lips, he's sated yet his throat is parched, desperate, fucked up. He prays for every single part of Veronica in front of him, blessed from God. He’s from the depths of his own Hell. He runs his length up and down her pussy, soaking himself a little more and he finds it hard to push past the lump in his trachea.

He slides in and it's tight, warm and he feels like he's finally home again. His mind buzzes with familiar and the way Veronica rocks on him, the sticky sound of her skin against his thighs is something Jughead will never get sick of. The sound of paint crackling under Veronica's fingernails rings louder than any other sound in the room, making him aware that she's only hanging on by her fucking nails as she watches him from over her shoulder pump into her.

She reaches back to Jughead's ass, keeping him closer and his fingers surf up her skin, rough thumbs scratching at the nape of her neck as his fingers get lost in her hair and then he wraps his hand in her, pulling her hair back so she can look her in the eye.

She bites onto her lip as he pulls harder, eye to eye, legs shaking with his weight on her back as it shines with sweat, brightened sun on her brown skin, reflection of his soul on her naked body.

Jughead keeps pulling on her but she moves her head, letting herself free, she pushes back on him to let him out and she spins on her heels, facing him, watching his hard cock twitch and Jughead swallow down spit and venom. "I want to see you when you come," she tells him.

He groans again, hunger and starvation in his dream-lost eyes but he slips his cock into her again. He hitches her up, gripping onto her ass as he balances her against the wall when every thrust she feels a little empty when he takes himself from her.

Jughead bites down on her collarbone, he pulls her thin skin off her neck, leaving bruised, angry marks on caramel. His nails dig into the skin of Veronica's ass and she still holds on from behind to the cracking mantle. She feels like heaven, like silk, satin, running ocean, pouring metal.

He believes she's hell, burning hot, charred fucking skin, clogged fucking arteries.

Jughead drops his head onto Veronica's shoulder, keeping his eyes shut because he feels his breaths are lost, he hears her smacking the wall, breaking it down as he pushes himself, thrusting his hips, digging into her thighs so loudly, with purpose. He's twitching to get deeper in her.

He feels nails cutting on his back as she holds on, skin peeling on his shoulder blades and hot air prickles his red, raw track marks made by his worst addiction.

Veronica slaps Jughead's back, making him flinch. Making him want her so much more. It starts in the tips of his fingers, and the veins that are purple of his strained hands. His bones are chattering inside of him, Veronica was pulsing around him and he feels her in the marrow of his bones, and when he kisses her, he tastes every single thought in their minds. Love, he tastes, love, love, love.

He's blinded and feels like he's underwater as he comes, spilling into her as Veronica rides him against the wall. He lets loose with her on his tongue, kissing her tenderly. 

He rides the wave until there's nothing left in him and she's dripping him down her leg. She hums against him, humming his name on his lips.

She ties up her hair, she smooths out her lipstick. She does up each button of her jeans deliberately and Jughead sits at the kitchen table with nothing but his jeans on and a cigarette between his fingers. He shakes a little as he watches her body stretch in front of him, the tense glitch in his jaw and the pounding in his temples doesn’t leave as he watches Veronica do up her bra. "I love you," he mumbles. "Do you know that?"

Veronica does the strap of her heel up and closes her eyes before speaking; "I do."

"Then why do we keep doing this?" he asks.

“Because Jughead, you told me that we’re hard to love. But for what it’s worth, it’s always been easy loving you.”

He lets their love ballad remain on replay, the unknown parts of their love is the haunting melody. 

**Author's Note:**

> I would love, you know, some validation because I love it and I'm shamelessly asking for it. Validate my sexy times and I'll love you 5ever.


End file.
